A western atmosphere. This is how we could summarize the current climate between some parents and the mayor of Laruscade, a small town in the north of the Gironde, for several months. Moreover, this Wednesday afternoon a banner is there to remind people in front of the town hall: “Mayor yes, sheriff no”! It was drawn up by the first to express their anger while Jean-Paul Labeyrie held a municipal council behind closed doors inside. They are indeed twenty, with the support of UNAAPE (National Union of Autonomous Associations of Parents of Students), denounced “the unworthy attitudes” that the councilor would have had in the playground of the nursery school.
So what exactly are the reasons for this anger? Since May, three complaints have been filed by parents of students against the mayor for allegedly violent acts against the students. For the first, it followed the presence of the chosen one in the school with a knife. He always said he actually had a bottle opener in his hand. But it is especially the last two that have set the fire to the powder at the beginning of the school year. Jean-Paul Labeyrie, who takes care of the extra-curricular activities at mid-day, would have pulled the ear of a little boy to remove it at the corner then voluntarily stepping on the foot of a student of CM1 to know if it was wrong.
Gironde: Two complaints filed against a mayor, accused of violence against children https://t.co/9fQY0GWT55 via @ 20minutesBord pic.twitter.com/DxnPszTaTq
– 20minutesbordeaux (@ 20minutesbord) September 15, 2021
Create an electroshock
Beyond the police investigation which continues, these parents of students have decided to demonstrate to “try to create an electric shock” at the mayor according to Frédéric, the father of the girl. “I am worried today when I leave my little one at school. We are as scared as children. These intrusions must stop. I don’t want this to happen again. I just want to be calm. Everyone is fed up, ”he explains. Other parents go further, they demand the resignation of the mayor and his entire team as they wrote on another banner. A representative of UNAAPE also claims to have collected testimonies from former students on the behavior of the city councilor.
Faced with these accusations, Jean-Paul Labeyrie defends himself. If he recognizes his authoritarian side and certain facts, they refute others like this one about the little girl of 9 years. For him, “this deleterious climate because of a few disruptive elements while things are going very well with the vast majority of parents” does not date from today: “The problems predate these facts with people who hold on to them. a Facebook page against me and with which I have already had other concerns. “I don’t think the children are terrified by the mayor,” he adds. Whatever the evil seems to be deep in Laruscade.
The prosecutor embarrassed by “the reiteration of the facts in a very short time”
The case has in any case made a lot of noise since the start of the school year. It also worries the authorities a little like the public prosecutor of Libourne, Olivier Kern: “What bothers me is the reiteration of the facts in a very short time. After this first reminder to the law (made to the mayor after the first complaint last May), I expected another behavior from an elected representative of the Republic. “If for the moment, he does not wish to communicate on his possible decisions which they should render by early October, the magistrate announces that he will receive Jean-Paul Labeyrie himself. This time, he’s not going to delegate. Which shows how seriously he takes this story.
The mayor, for his part, says that he “will disappear from the playground” very quickly. Indeed, his presence in the school at midday was due to a lack of staff to supervise the children. A problem in the process of being solved according to Jean-Paul Labeyrie with the arrival in the coming days of a new supervisor. But will that be enough to end the conflict? Not so sure…