, first became mayor of Luxembourg City at the age of 29 in 1982 when she succeeded her father Camille, who stepped down due to ill health. She retained her position until 1999 when the DP entered national government with the CSV and Polfer became deputy prime minister and foreign minister under Jean-Claude Juncker. She returned to local and European politics after the DP were ousted in the 2004 elections, but at the 2005 local elections her successor in 1999, Paul Helminger got the most votes for the DP and retained the mayorship.

But when became prime minister in 2013, having himself beaten Helminger to the mayorship by just 500 votes in 2011, Polfer returned to the top office in the capital. She led her party to another local election victory in 2017 and chose to form a coalition with ethe CSV after 12 years of a DP-déi Gréng partnership.

High ranking in opinion polls

There had been rumours that Polfer, now 70, would step away from politics at the 2023 elections. But recent opinion polls place her as the second most popular and well-known DP politician, after Bettel, by some margin. Last week public broadcaster radio 100,7 had cited sources saying that Polfer had confirmed she would run again, a story that elicited a swift rebuke from the mayor who said that nothing had been formally decided within the local party. But on Tuesday evening she did confirm her decision to run again in an interview with RTL television.

Her running mate, , is a 52-year old accountant and audit professional who has worked at KPMG and has had his own consultancy, Goldschmidt & Associates, since 2006. He was first elected to Luxembourg City council in 2009 and since 2013, under Polfer’s stewardship, he has been an alderman. He has most notably been in charge of transport but is also responsible for the environment and also public spaces and festivals.