“Kill the mayor”, “It’s the mayor!” We’re going to do it ”… The car-ram attack on the home of the mayor of L’Haÿ-les-Roses on Sunday revived the concerns of local elected officials, prime targets of rioters after the death of Nahel, killed on Tuesday in 17 years old by a policeman. In L’Haÿ-les-Roses (Val-de-Marne), south of Paris, a burning vehicle deliberately targeted the flag of Mayor Vincent Jeanbrun (LR) overnight from Saturday to Sunday, destroying the gate and a vehicle of the family.
If “a milestone has been crossed in horror and ignominy”, according to the elected official, this attack which triggered a wave of support in the political class is not isolated. According to David Lisnard, “150 town halls or municipal buildings have been attacked since Tuesday, a first in the history of the country”. This was the case in Garges-lès-Gonesse and Persan (Val-d’Oise), L’Ile-Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis), Brie-Comte-Robert (Seine-et-Marne) or Coulaines ( Sarthe). The president of the Association of Mayors of France has listed the long list of attacks on elected officials committed since the start of the violence.
“I heard ‘it’s the mayor, we’re going to do it'”
“Kill the mayor”, was heard saying Bernard Jamet, first magistrate of Sannois, a town of 26,000 inhabitants of Val-d’Oise, taken to task Thursday evening while trying to prevent a group from attacking the town hall . In Pontoise, Mayor Stéphanie Von Euw (Free!) saw a firework rocket crash in front of her car. “I heard” it’s the mayor, we’re going to do it “”, testified on Europe 1 the elected, burned in the ankle.
In Maromme (Seine-Maritime), Mayor David Lamiray (DVG) was “attacked and had to take refuge in his town hall”, while in Charleville-Mézières (Ardennes) his counterpart Boris Ravignon (LR) was targeted by bottles as he put out a fire of garbage cans. The mayor of Cholet Gilles Bourdouleix (DVD) saw his old house “ransacked” and in Saint-Pierre-des-Corps, in the suburbs of Tours, the vehicle of Emmanuel François (DVD) went up in smoke before his eyes. In Mons-en-Barœul (North), agents present inside the building escaped the flames.
The “political dimension” of the revolt
The office of the Minister for Communities Dominique Faure has announced that the strengthening of criminal sanctions in the event of attacks against elected officials, which will be considered as serious as those targeting people in uniform, “will be examined in Parliament as soon as possible. “. Other measures to protect elected officials will also be presented “in the coming days”.
Since the resignation in early May of the mayor of Saint-Brévin Yannick Morez (DVD), whose home was targeted by fire, the feeling that a milestone has been crossed prevails in the political class. “We want to create an electric shock,” said David Lisnard. “The targets of the riots are not chosen at random, we have an overrepresentation of institutional targets which testify to the political dimension of this revolt”, estimates Julien Talpin, researcher at the CNRS. Above all, he sees in it “a politicization of the feeling of injustice because the inhabitants of working-class neighborhoods refer to elected officials the difficulties of their daily lives, their experiences of discrimination and social marginalization”.