[5] Rebsamen began his professional and political career by serving as chief of staff for the Regional Council of Burgundy from 1979 to 1983, where he worked alongside Pierre Joxe (1979-1982) and André Billardon (1982-1983).

He then worked under Laurent Fabius while the latter was First Secretary of the Socialist Party (1992-1993), then as technical advisor to Jean-Jack Queyranne.

[6] Rebsamen was elected in March 1998 as the general councilor of the canton of Dijon-5, winning 51.5% of the votes and defeating the incumbent, Pierre Barbier (RPR).

In June, then in August 2006, he asked Jack Lang and Dominique Strauss-Kahn to withdraw their candidacy for president of France, and explicitly supported Ségolène Royal, becoming co-director of her campaign, along with Jean-Louis Bianco.

[8] In 2012, Rebsamen opposed a government effort tried to prevent politicians from holding multiple posts, and said that if forced to choose between continuing as Senator or as Mayor of Dijon he would opt for the latter.

[11][12][13][14] On 30 July 2015, after the death of Alain Millot, who had succeeded him as Mayor of Dijon, Rebsamen announced that he would run for that post again.

On 6 December 2016, he was offered the post of Minister of the Interior, which he refused because he preferred to remain Mayor of Dijon.

[17] Ahead of the 2022 presidential elections, Rebsamen endorsed Emmanuel Macron and left the Socialist Party.