After the suicide of Hervé Neau, his first assistant Agnès Bourgeais succeeds him at the head of the town hall of Rezé

This Thursday evening, it is in a very particular context that the municipal councilors of Rezé met in the Trocardière room. A municipal council behind closed doors but broadcast via the internet, an exceptional municipal council to designate the successor of Hervé Neau, 58, who committed suicide at the Town Hall two weeks ago, after sending malicious anonymous mail. The Nantes prosecutor’s office has also opened an investigation for moral harassment.

Tribute to Hervé Neau from his elected colleagues

By “conviction”, “solidarity” or “respect for the democratic vote” of June 2020, the oppositions did not present a candidate. The majority of Hervé Neau – Rezé citizen – had nominated as candidate Agnès Bourgeais, 48, senior education advisor at Allende College in the city and mother of three children. She was elected with 43 “for” votes; there was a “blank” vote. Agnès Bourgeais thus becomes the first woman to take the head of this commune, the 3rd in the Nantes conurbation.

Before this vote, elected officials who so wished were invited to speak. This was the case of the oppositions, which far from political differences, insisted on recalling the civic engagement of Hervé Neau for Rezé through his associative functions, but also as a teacher, or even his sense of listening, his humanism. The elected representatives of the majority also wished to thank the inhabitants of Rezé for their testimonies of support over the past two weeks.

“The harassment to which Hervé Neau was subjected” – Agnès Bourgeais, new mayor of Rezé

Very moved, Agnès Bourgeais wanted to recall the context which led Hervé Neau to kill himself : “the harassment to which Hervé Neau was subjected”. And to quote the President of the Council Léon Blum, in 1936, at the funeral of his Minister of the Interior. Roger Salengro, driven to suicide by attacks from the far-right press: “one listens and repeats without realizing that curiosity and gossip are very close to slander, that slander is very close to slander and that the person who thus publishes slander becomes an involuntary accomplice of the slanderer. calumny must be dried up at its source We must put an end to the inexplicable spirit of tolerance which considers it almost excusable in the case where it is nevertheless the most criminal.

This Saturday, February 26, 3 p.m., an official ceremony in memory of Hervé Neau will take place in front of the Hôtel de Ville. The messages sent by the population will be read and projected on a screen.