The municipality of Nazelles-Negron will have a new mayor this Tuesday evening. The municipal council meets at 7 p.m. to elect who will succeed Richard Chatellier. The former city councilor, indicted for rape and sexual assault on minors, resigned from his post last month, under pressure from the majority and the municipal opposition.
While she could have eased the tensions, this transfer of power tensesin fact, a little more the tensions that emerged in April, at the time of the revelation of the charges against Richard Chatellier. The Nazelles-Négron opposition group demanded that a new ballot be held so that voters could be called to the polls. Nothing will happen. It will be the elected officials who will vote.
A petition to demand the organization of new elections
For one of the members of this group, Christophe Ahuir, it will only serve to put the dust under the carpet. “We don’t solve anything by doing it this way. Because the criminal investigation targeting Richard Chatellier is certainly private, it only concerns him, but it impacts the life of the whole municipality. Even the municipal majority is divided On the one hand, there are those who support the former elected official and on the other, those who are very happy with his departure. At some point, it will explode. We are only pushing the problem away.”
This Tuesday evening, his group will not take part in the vote for the new mayor. But he will point out that his petition launched in August to call for new elections collects 329 signaturesthe equivalent of one inhabitant in 10. “And again, we could have had more, we got there late and there were only two of us to meet the population.” The petition was filed in the prefecture last Friday.
Cyrille Martin, former first deputy to Richard Chatellier, is currently the only declared candidate. He is a favorite to be mayor. Contacted by France Bleu Touraine, he did not respond to our various calls and text messages.