It was barely a month ago, on December 9 to be precise, in Ledeuix, a small Bearn village of 1,100 souls. That day, Bernard Aurisset, the mayor (without a label), went to the primary school to attend a screening operation for children before a school trip. But barely arrived, the chosen one, in his sixties, is violently taken to task by one of his constituents. The two men know each other, have already had some trouble. The city councilor, who notably accuses the father of incivility and rodeos in the streets of the village, ended up making a report to the public prosecutor and an investigation was opened in September.
“As soon as he sees me, he begins to insult me in front of all the children, then he pushes me aside,” recalls the city councilor. Maybe I should have turned on my heels but I’m a lively person, it’s not in my temperament. The blows go off, the mayor has the eyebrow arch open and receives a 7-day total stoppage of work. Tried in immediate appearance, his attacker was sentenced to six months in prison, three of which are firm, suitable for conversion. “This is my second term,” continues the councilor, “and I really feel a difference, it’s harder. There, it was extreme, but people are more aggressive, we sometimes have the impression of being punching-balls. With my colleagues from the surrounding villages, we all made the same observation. “
A sharp increase in reports since 2019
And the figures confirm his foreboding. According to the Ministry of the Interior, in parallel with the Covid-19 epidemic, threats, physical or verbal attacks, degradation towards elected officials increased by 200% between 2019 and 2020. Last year, there were 1,276 incidents. , including 500 physical attacks. And if the 2021 count has not yet been finalized, it is part of the same trend: between January and October, 1,255 incidents were reported, including 128 in Paris and in the inner suburbs. “This is only the tip of the iceberg,” said Alexandre Touzet, safety delegate to the departmental council of Essonne. Many elected officials believe that insults, threats or insults are part of the risks of the mandate and do not report them. “
If now, elected officials are encouraged to systematically report the slightest fact – a referent responsible for referral was even appointed in November to the Assembly – health policy seems to have fueled the situation. Since June, the Interior Ministry has observed an 80% increase in attacks and threats against elected officials. In July, during the debates on the establishment of the health pass, the recorded facts went from around 80 per month to 191. And since December with the announcement of the vaccination pass, the inventory of threats and attacks takes on the air of sinister inventory à la Prévert.
At the end of December, the garage of the LREM deputy for Oise, Pascal Blois, was set on fire, the walls of his home tagged: “vote no”, “it will fart”. At the same time, several of his counterparts have been threatened. “You only deserve bursts of bullets at your home”, thus received the deputy Horizon of Val-d’Oise, Naïma Moutchou. His counterpart from Seine-Maritime discovered more or less the same message: “I am only thinking of one thing: come and behead you”, begins the e-mail.
About twenty reports since the summer
“During the” yellow vests “crisis, we may have had clashes or heated debates with some but that had nothing to do, assures Ludovic Mendes, LREM deputy for Moselle. We were challenged on Facebook, we could talk. There, these are messages sent with fake email addresses, which go through VPNs, it is much more worked. He received the first threats – murder, beheading, detonating his office – this summer. It has never stopped since. If at the beginning, he did not file a complaint, he now systematically reports to the prosecutor. “I am about twenty …”, he laments. While he asserts that these messages have no impact on his parliamentary work, he acknowledges that they nevertheless create a feeling of insecurity. “If I am in the evening in a street and that I have the impression that one follows me or if one stares at me, I am more worried”, he confides.
The subject is taken very seriously by the government. Tuesday, the Prime Minister denounced “unacceptable violence” and affirmed that there was “no other way than repression in the face of these despicable acts. On November 9, the Minister of the Interior, Gerald Darmanin, sent a telegram to the prefects asking them for increased surveillance of the offices and the homes of parliamentarians. In this same letter, the gendarmes and police are also asked to accompany “with care” the elected officials who file a complaint and increased surveillance on social networks. But the upcoming entry of the vaccine pass and the campaign should not ease tensions anytime soon.