“Hello, legislative elections of June 12 and 19”, announces an activist while towing in front of a nursery school in Vincennes, in Val-de-Marne. In reality, this simple action places him outside the law: the town hall has published an order prohibiting towing within 25 meters of schools and places of worship.
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This decision is also debated among the parents of students present that day. “I’m not unduly shocked, says one of them. Honestly, I tell myself that there are plenty of places where it is possible to tow such as metro entrances or store exits. In front of this school the electoral panels for the first round of the legislative elections, Sunday June 12, are clearly visible, but the candidates do not have the right to tow. “That’s a shameregrets another parent of a student. When democracy can be expressed everywhere, that’s good.” Perhaps, but the mayor of Vincennes does not seem to agree.
Charlotte Libert-Albanel believes that political parties have recently broken an old custom of not towing in front of schools. It is for this reason that she took this order. “It seemed natural to me not to impose these towing operations on our children and on the parents who, in the morning, have other things to do than to see a leaflet quicklyExplain Charlotte Libert-Albanel. I just ask them to step back 25 meters to be able to talk a little further, but not necessarily in front of the children. A similar measure was implemented two years ago in Levallois-Perret, in Hauts-de-Seine, but it is not applied for these elections.
A few kilometers away, in Neuilly-Plaisance (Seine-Saint-Denis), the municipal decree concerns this time the covered market and the main street. Again, Mayor Christian Demuynck found that the candidates had become far too insistent. “When distributions go well, underlines the chosen one, that the Noceans are not, in quotation marks, attacked, there is no difficulty”.
“It becomes complicated when there is a gathering of many people. Many leaflets are distributed with, in quotes, aggressiveness towards passers-by.”
Christian Demuynckat franceinfo
For these legislative elections, the mayor of Neuilly-Plaisance still had to review his copy and restrict the decree taken during the presidential election. A judge in chambers considered that the text was a serious and manifestly illegal attack on the pluralist freedom of expression of currents of thought and opinion. In these two cities, Vincennes and Neuilly-Plaisance as in others in France, such as Blagnac or Lille for example, the town halls consider that they have to legislate because certain candidates are sometimes ready to do anything to make themselves known.
Schools, markets, places of worship … For the legislative elections, municipalities prohibit candidates from towing – the report by Valentin Dunate
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