The mayor of Châteauneuf-sur-Cher, in the Cher, was the victim of a violent attack on Wednesday August 31. He was punched in the face by a young man with whom he allegedly had an altercation several weeks earlier about incivility. Injured in the face, William Pelletier, aged 72, had stitches and was “incapacitated for work for less than 8 days”. The alleged attacker was arrested and is due to appear in court on Friday September 2. “This is not an isolated act, it is a social phenomenon and it is extremely worrying for democracy”warns Jean-Paul Jeandon, socialist mayor of Cergy and co-president of the security commission of the Association of Mayors of France.
franceinfo: Is this an isolated act?
Jean-Paul Jeandon: No, it is a continuously existing act in our society. Death threats against the mayors of Saint-Côme-du-Mont and Poissy, burned car of the mayor of Briançon… In 2020, the Ministry of the Interior recorded 1,300 attacks, threats, insults, i.e. three more than in 2019. This is not an isolated act, it is a social phenomenon and it is extremely worrying for elected officials but also for democracy. We must take strong measures and not only judicial ones.
How to change this situation?
There is a problem of education of our fellow citizens. Who knows today that a mayor is a judicial police officer and that he is, as such, the depository of public authority? These are things to remember, the role of a mayor: he applies the laws and he is also the depositary of public authority. There is therefore a more important role to play at the level of citizenship, both with children and with parents. All this must be done with associations, perhaps with the prefectures. Then, we need to take legal proceedings into account more quickly. But the problem is that we lack magistrates. Another element: for years, the AMF has been asking to be able to bring a civil action, which is not currently possible constitutionally. Finally, we must regulate social networks. We need to have a much stronger approach on the owners, managers of social networks: we cannot continue to be insulted there permanently.
Are any mayors ready to step down?
Of course, and I am thinking above all of the mayors of small towns, who are permanently on the front line with the inhabitants. The AMF has signed a partnership with France Victimes to support elected officials, because it’s not just a physical problem, it’s also a mental problem. They are attached to carrying out their mission correctly, they do not understand this situation. They already have all the administrative procedures, the regulatory changes with very few municipal staff and some say to themselves: why continue? The Covid period was also not easy with all the measures to be respected. We have already seen this in the last municipal elections with slightly fewer mayors who stood for re-election. Mayors will hesitate more and more to represent themselves or even will resign. We talk about a crisis of democracy, but we are in these facts truly in a crisis of democracy.