Jean Cristofol, was appointed of Marseilles at the time of the Popular Front in 1936. He was the first communist mayor of Marseilles from December 1946 to October 1947. Then after the war until its death in 1957, it will be appointed of this city. In 1939, following the pact germano-Soviet, the communist deputies are arbitrarily deposed of their mandate, condemned by a court to the commands. It becomes one of these vingt-sept appointed communist imprisoned in France then in Algeria. Released with his comrades, member of the Consultative Assembly of Algiers, it is back in Marseilles, as of August 27, 1944, in full insurrection of the city and it is named president of the regional committee of release, where it will take part in the sides of the police chief of the Republic Raymond Aubrac to the efforts to supply the city and to start again the production. After the war the prefects of the Republic are given the responsability always to apply in Marseilles a mode of supervision as in Paris. It is besides the Cristofol deputy who will intervene on this subject and will obtain the return of Marseilles to the common law, therefore with the election of its mayor.