Futur Montréal announces mayoral candidate

By Dan Laxer The Suburban, Aug 27, 2025

A day after Ensemble Montréal introduced its full team for the CDN-NDG borough, the city’s newest municipal party, Futur Montréal, announced that Jean-François Kacou will be running in the November election as the party’s leader and as candidate for mayor of Montreal.
Kacou is no stranger to municipal politics. The former Executive Director of the City of Percé had also been the Executive Director of Ensemble Montréal. In fact, he is one of the principal drafters of the party’s constitution, and oversaw its adoption.
However last fall he was dismissed from the party “without justification or préavis (notice).” Kacou was hired, he says, to get the party back on track, and to help create its constitution. “And after that they let me go.”
He was originally hired by them, he says, based on his track record in Percé, where he oversaw major initiatives in sustainability, development, and tourism.
“What we did in Percé was great,” Kacou says, “and this is what we want to do with Futur Montréal. We want to bring something fresh, something new into the mix in municipal politics in Montreal.”
“We make a great time,” he says, “and we think we can take City Hall.”
He chose Futur Montréal as “the most viable alternative in this municipal election.” Projet Montréal and Ensemble Montréal are “two sides of the same coin.” Which is why he did not gravitate toward Mayor Plante’s party after being fired from Ensemble Montréal. “I’m not a Projet Montréal person,” he says. He wanted to be a part of a team “that listens, that are open to new ideas and to conversation with people.” Projet Montréal has been criticized about its unilateral decision making and lack of consultation.
That said, Futur Montréal’s priorities are not very different from either Projet Montréal’s or Ensemble Montréal’s: mobility, affordable housing, fighting homelessness.
On bicycle paths, Kacou says the city is too divided. “We need to bring back the cohesion between cyclists, automobilists, pedestrians, and all users of the roads” and change “the ideology of Projet Montréal that we’ve been enduring for eight years.”
Kacou is the first Afro-Canadian in Montreal’s history to run for city mayor (CDN-NDG Mayor Gracia Kasoki Katahwa, who is from Kinshasa, is the first black woman to be elected borough mayor). Kacou is originally from Côte d’Ivoire. He moved to Montreal in 2012 at the age of 25 after spending some time in France. His candidacy, he tells The Suburban, “brings hope to all the communities, all the diverse communities of Montreal. Montreal is a very mixed and a diverse population, and we need this representation into our (political) offices.”

Craig Sauvé’s Transition Montreal party is also seeking the city leadership. Sauvé is currently the city councillor for Saint-Henri—Little-Burgundy—Pointe-Saint-Charles. He had represented the district as an Independent after leaving Projet Montréal in 2021 due to “unfounded” allegations of sexual assault. He left, he said at the time, to not be a distraction to the party.
Sauvé also ran in the 2024 federal by-election in the LaSalle–Émard–Verdun riding. He faced criticism at the time for a pamphlet that featured a photo of Sauvé posing with the Palestinian flag.