“I can’t see myself resting while they’re really under really, really heavy stress.” This is, among other things, the meaning of the visit of Valérie Pécresse, LR candidate for the next presidential election, this Thursday, December 30 in Loire-Atlantique, with caregivers and police. Before going to the Nantes police station, she took a tour of the anti-Covid vaccination center in La Baule.
The mayor of the town, Franck Louvrier, boss of LR 44, accompanied him as well as Laurence Garnier, senator and leader of the right-wing opposition to the town hall of Nantes. Eric Ciotti, the unfortunate finalist of the primary on the right, was also there. It must be said that it was a question of security, one of the favorite themes of the member for the Alpes-Maritimes.
New Year’s Eve is always a delicate night “with delinquents who, every December 31, burn hundreds of cars in France”, according to Valérie Pécresse, who advocates “zero impunity for delinquents”. Same speech when she evokes “this beautiful city of Nantes where the police described to us an often foreign delinquency with the impossibility of sending home these foreign delinquents. And then, they also described to us a justice which, unfortunately, is drowned in the cases with delays audiences that are more than 13 months (…) We must put this zero tolerance speech back on the agenda. “
A little over an hour at the police station
This visit was made without a camera or a journalist. It lasted about an hour. The trade unionists were not invited either, but Valérie Pécresse spoke with the police, toured the services. She answered questions from the media at the end of this visit.
“We would like all the political elites to come and meet us and not only during the electoral campaign. It is quite salesy to come and see the police”, note Laurent Le Tallec, departmental secretary of the Unsa Police union. “Words are good. We are waiting for action. We are fed up with the fact that the police are being used by the left and the right”, add Stéphane Léonard, his counterpart, at SGP Police-Force Ouvrière Unit.
Both campaign for more human resources, although reinforcements have arrived recently and more should follow. The Nantes and agglo police zone is some 1,200 agents – police officers and administrators alike – in the face of a growing population. The two trade unionists also plead for stronger penal responses. The Alliance union, the first in Nantes, was, this Thursday evening, awaiting the green light from its national leadership to be able to speak.
Sanitary gauge and pass in its meetings
Asked about the anger of some artists who see their indoor shows limited to 2,000 people as of January 3 – government anti-covid measure – while no gauge is established for political meetings, Valérie Pécresse announced that its meetings would be held with gauge and sanitary pass. “If there are gauges for indoor shows, there will be gauges in my meetings. There will also be passes, as in theaters. There will be no dispensation: we will be exemplary”, she said.