The mayor of Dreux, Abdel-Kader Guerza, died at the age of 69

The mayor of Dreux (Eure-et-Loir), Abdel-Kader Guerza (69 years old) died this Saturday, November 14, 2026, the town hall announced in a press release. He was hospitalized in Dreux on November 3, possibly following a stroke.

The mayor of Dreux (Eure-et-Loir), Abdel-Kader Guerza (Divers Center) died this Saturday, November 14, 2026. He reportedly suffered a stroke on November 3. The elected official was first treated at Dreux hospital, before being transferred to Bichat hospital in Paris. He finally died this Saturday, November 14 in the morning.

In a press release, the municipal team, notably composed of Marie-Françoise Scavennec, the first deputy, announced her disappearance with “deep regret and immense sadness”. “The municipal majority sends its most sincere condolences to his family, his loved ones and to all the people of Drouaise.”

From Algeria to the town hall of Dreux, the journey of a man who wanted to “give back to his city what it had given him”

Sub-prefect, hospital director, senior civil servant... Born in Algeria in the middle of the war, Abdel-Kader Guerza was elected mayor of Dreux during the municipal elections in March 2026. A form of homecoming for someone who had always considered the town his hometown.

“I want to thank this city” and “give back to France and Dreux what they gave me,” he confided to us the day after his election. An ambition which alone summed up his attachment to this territory.

On March 26, 2026, we dedicated a portrait to the man who then became mayor of Dreux. Back on his journey.

Before Dreux, there is Algeria. “I grew up in a land devastated by war. I dream of a world where children grow up in peace,” said Abdel-Kader Guerza.

His childhood was modest. He remembers these little details that tell the story of an era: filing his nails on the sidewalk or making chewing gum with tar melted in the sun.

Then comes exile. In 1965, when he was only 8 years old, he left his native country to join his father, who had left a year earlier to try his luck in France. First stop: Rouen, where the family is welcomed into an accommodation center with “itchy blankets”.

Very quickly, Dreux enters his life. One of his sisters lives there. “It was my first contact with the city, January 15, 1965,” he remembered.

He stayed in Rouen with his father, but made frequent trips to Dreux. “All school holidays, and even every two weeks.” Over time, the city took on a special place in his personal history. “It’s my host city, my heart city.”

It was there that he discovered cycling, swimming and a taste for challenge. “I was always first,” he joked. He also knows the teenage years, the groups of friends and the evenings which begin at the café de la Belle Époque before continuing in the nightclubs of Auneau or Chartres.

An immigrant childhood, happy despite a certain precariousness, in public housing, with a father who worked in a factory and a mother who raised the children.

At the age of 20, Abdel-Kader Guerza entered working life. With his professional baccalaureate in hand, he took on a series of small jobs: bus ticket seller, then warehouse worker in a hospital in Rouen.

“It was chance that led me to the hospital,” he said. By replacing a friend, he discovers a universe which will ultimately become that of his entire career.

“I couldn’t see myself unloading trucks my whole life.” He then decided to train, took several competitive exams and gradually climbed the ranks: agent, deputy, then department head.

At the age of 29, he took on his first management functions by taking charge of the Saint-Romain-de-Colbosc Hospital Center, “all this, at the cost of work”.

His hospital career then continued as deputy director of the Elbeuf hospital center (Seine-Maritime), from 1991 to 1995, then at the head of the Lillebonne hospital center (Seine-Maritime), from 1995 to 2001. Between 2002 and 2006, he also directed the departmental psychiatric hospital center of Bonneval, in Eure-et-Loir.

Over the years, he managed and restructured several establishments, with a constant desire to bring together sometimes very different structures.

Among its most notable achievements is the creation, in 1997, of the Val-de-Seine hospital-clinic in Lillebonne. An innovative structure, bringing together a public hospital and a private clinic under one roof.

A new stage then begins in his career: that of the prefecture. Abdel-Kader Guerza became sub-prefect, first in Mortagne-au-Perche (Orne), then in Saumur (Maine-et-Loire) between 2010 and 2011. He then joined Dreux, where he worked from 2011 to 2013, before continuing his career in Rambouillet (Yvelines).

He who had known the city as a child returns there with another hat, that of representative of the State.

“Everywhere, I tried to act on the ground, as close as possible to realities. I want to repair, connect, put things back on their feet,” he explained.

A few years later, he finally returned to head the town hall of Dreux. A consecration for this man who had traveled so many paths since his arrival in France in 1965.