He described himself in an article published in the French daily Libération when he was a minister, in 2005: "Born on the banks of the Maroni River, in Guyana, a French département in Amazonia situated 7,000 km afar from Paris, grandson of a convict from Vendée who had married a Black woman after his liberation, son of a Creole father and of an Amerindian Surinamese mother, I am Léon Bertrand, with a name typically French but with a physical appearance typically exotic.
When he was a minister, he realized that "several times, when I received in my office people who didn't know my physical appearance, their republican respectful «Monsieur le ministre» was automatically addressed to my advisor, who was white, and not to me.
"[1] Running for re-election as deputy in the 2007 French legislative election, he was surprisingly defeated with 47.1% of the votes in the runoff against Chantal Berthelot (PSG), who won 52.9%.
During the night of 27–28 November 2009, Léon Bertrand was arrested and put into custody on charges of favoritism and corruption.
[2] Despite still being in custody, he is candidate on the third place of a right wing list not endorsed by the UMP for the March 2010 regional elections in French Guiana.