A member of the
Union for French Democracy (UDF), he was elected mayor of
Saint-André-lez-Lille in 2001 with almost 52% of the vote, as well as general councillor and a member of the
Urban Community of Lille Métropole. In 2005, Olivier Henno created the surprise in a by-election where he managed to place former
UMP deputy and former minister
Marc-Philippe Daubresse in a difficult runoff. Henno lost the runoff with a bit over 46% of the vote. He joined
François Bayrou's
MoDem in 2007. Running again in the
Nord's 4th constituency during the
2007 French legislative election, he did not manage to create another surprise and placed third in the first round with 18.09%, behind the Socialist candidate (21.49%) and far behind
Marc-Philippe Daubresse (46.77%). He was re-elected mayor of
Saint-André-lez-Lille in 2008 with over 65% of the votes in the first round against a UMP and PS list. In 2009, he was selected to be the
MoDem's candidate in
Nord-Pas-de-Calais for the
2010 regional elections. ==References==