More than 200 mayors are expected this Tuesday at the Élysée. All have been victims of violence or degradation in recent days of riots.
Mayors victims of violence or degradation in recent days invited to the Elysee. While the nights seem calmer for several days, a week after the death of Nahel, killed by a policeman in Nanterre, Emmanuel Macron receives the mayors of some 220 municipalities “victims of abuse” throughout the country. Monday was marked by numerous rallies across France in support of the mayor of L’Haÿ-les-Roses, Vincent Jeanbrun, the day after the car-ram attack on his home in this town of Val-de-Marne.
>> Urban violence: Emmanuel Macron meets 220 mayors to “listen to them, hear them” and “welcome the fact that they stood on the front line”, explains Minister Christophe Béchu
For Emmanuel Macron, the objective of this great meeting is simple: to exchange at random with these elected officials. There will be no lectern, no speeches, or even exchanges at the microphone as during the great debate. The Head of State wants the most informal exchange possible. According to a relative, Emmanuel Macron wishes via this meeting “support and hear”.
Within the executive, we still do not explain these attacks on mayors. “Is it an opportunity effect? What are the demands?”, asks an adviser. The Head of State has not planned any concrete announcements while a plan for the security of mayors was already presented at the end of May after the attack on the home of the former mayor of Saint-Brévin.
“Let’s get to work”
As for the mayors, many come to the Élysée with several demands. This is the case of elected officials from the Lyon region, such as Laurence Fautra, whose town hall in Decines-Charpieu was targeted by fireworks mortars. The town’s high school was also targeted, a hotel was set on fire. “We are running out of resources! There is a shortage of police personnel. I want to tell the president that the problem is also that we often take teenagers, minors and that a few hours later, they are released”sighs the elected LR, also vice-president of the Regional Council of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.
Same story, with the socialist mayor of Villeurbanne, Cédric Van Styvendael. In his town, an apartment building burned down, and dozens of people were relocated. Wish him a resumption of dialogue in the neighborhoods without excusing the degradations for all that. “An umpteenth consultation without taking action would be dramatic. I am waiting for us to get to work. This work has sometimes been sacrificed on the logic of the budgetary altar, in particular the ability to stay in touch with people who were in between and who tipped over. This explanation is not worth legitimizing.”
For the Élysée, the challenge of the day is rather symbolic under the gold of the presidential palace. “Receiving them is the first political response”, assures an adviser. A way also for the executive after a week of violence to gradually turn the page on the safe response.