In the 1999 communal elections, Bettel was elected to Luxembourg City's communal council, finishing sixth on the DP's list. Two years after his election to the local Council, on 12 July 2001, he was certified as a lawyer. By the time of the 2004 legislative election, Bettel had significantly consolidated his position, and finished fourth, assuring him a seat in the Chamber of Deputies. On 28 November 2005, after the communal elections in which he was placed fourth on the DP list, Bettel was appointed échevin in the Council of Luxembourg City. Following municipal elections on 9 October 2011, at the young age of 38, Bettel was sworn in as Mayor of Luxembourg on 24 November 2011.
National politics
Bettel ran for the Chamber of Deputies in the 1999 legislative election, and finished 10th amongst DP candidates in the Centre constituency, with the top seven being elected. However, the DP overtook the Luxembourg Socialist Workers' Party as the second-largest party, and its members formed the majority of the new government as the Christian Social People's Party's coalition partners. Thus, with Lydie Polfer and Anne Brasseur vacating their seats to take roles in the government, and Colette Flesch not taking her seat so as to focus on her role as Member of the European Parliament, Bettel was appointed to the Chamber, starting 12 August 1999.
Following the 2018 Luxembourg general election, he became the first openly gay prime minister in the world to be re-elected for a second term. He began his second term when his government was formed on 5 December 2018., which he currently leads with Co-Deputy Prime Ministers François Bauschand Dan Kersch. The government is a continuation between the Democratic Party, the Luxembourg Socialist Workers' Party, and The Greens from the Bettel I government, with minor changes. On 16 September 2019, following a short bilateral meeting on the status of Brexit negotiations, Bettel continued a press conference without British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, after Johnson abruptly pulled out due to an anti-Brexit protest held by British citizens living in Luxembourg. Bettel gestured towards Johnson's empty podium and confirmed that the UK government had not tabled any concrete proposals for amendments to the UK's Withdrawal Agreement, particularly the "Irish backstop" that Johnson wishes to replace. This being despite the public pronouncements of Prime Minister Johnson and the UK's departure date from the EU fast approaching. Pro-Brexit UK media reported the matter as an ambush, whilst other UK and international media outlets largely saw the incident, and the reaction of pro-Brexit UK media outlets to it, as confirming the empty bravado and rhetoric of Johnson's premiership, the reduced status of the UK post-Brexit, and the increasing hypersensitivity and aversion of pro-Brexit pundits and politicians to criticism.
Personal life
Bettel is gay, and has stated that increasingly in Luxembourg "people do not consider the fact of whether someone is gay or not". Bettel is Luxembourg's first openly gay Prime Minister and, worldwide, the third openly gay head of government following Iceland's Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, Belgium's Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo and Leo Varadkar, the Taoiseach of Ireland. As of 2020, he is one of two openly gay world leaders in office, the other being Ana Brnabić, the Prime Minister of Serbia. Bettel has been married to Gauthier Destenay since 2015, the same year that same-sex marriage was introduced to Luxembourg.
