Here are the 5 main candidates vying to replace Quebec City's long-time mayor

With Mayor Régis Labeaume retiring, Quebec City will soon have a new leader at city hall for the first time in more than a decade. 

Labeaume, known for his iron-clad hold on the city, has served as mayor since 2007, and was awarded the French Legion of Honour in a ceremony at city hall last week. 

Five major candidates are now running for mayor. Here is a closer look at them — and their platforms. 

Marie-Josée Savard worked with Labeaume for eight years. 

First elected to city council in 2009, Savard opted to take a break to raise her family four years later. 

Since 2017, she has served as vice-president of the city's executive committee and councillor for the Cap-Rouge-Laurentien district. 

Savard is vowing continuity, picking up where Labeaume left off on building a proposed tramway, and promising to get started on the second phase of the city's public transit network and bike paths. 

She will maintain the city's plan to start a composting program once a biomethanization plant is up and running in 2022. 

Savard is promising 2,600 affordable and social housing units by 2025, 20 per cent of which would be dedicated to marginalized groups and people without homes. 

She has found herself having to defend Labeaume's record throughout her campaign. 

Her opponents say she allowed city hall to be a "toxic" workplace and did nothing about the over-taxing of residents. They also say she passed the buck when it came to protecting heritage buildings — a file she was in charge of. 

"I knew I would be a bit of a target," Savard said in a news conference following Radio-Canada's mayoral debate last week. "I have to defend my record, and at the same time it's like I have to defend the current mayor, so it's definitely a major challenge." 

But Savard maintains things have improved under Labeaume, and says things will get even better if she is elected. 

This is Jean-Francois Gosselin's second crack at running for mayor.