More than 300 complaints for “death threat” lodged by national elected officials or “which appear in the media” have been lodged, declared the Minister of the Interior, Gerald Darmanin, on Tuesday
on RTL. These 300 complaints have been filed since July and the entry into force of the health pass, said the entourage of the minister, who said that 60 elected officials had also been threatened since the beginning of the year 2022.
💬 Insults, assaults, death threats against elected officials: “More than 300 complaints filed, an exponential increase”, announces @GDarmanin in #RTLMorning with @VenturaAlba pic.twitter.com/3nMA1cfZXl
– RTL France (@RTLFrance) January 11, 2022
Violence up by 47%
“In this particular context of antivax, there are a lot of complaints filed for threats”, indicated the minister on RTL. He clarified that there were also threats “in the name of radical Islam” and “of all kinds”, “but we can see an exponential increase”. According to Gérald Darmanin, “today we have more than 300 complaints filed by elected nationals or made by elected officials who appear in the media because they have received death threats”.
The Minister of the Interior will be received Tuesday evening with the Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti, by the President of the National Assembly Richard Ferrand to take stock of the number of cases identified and the judicial response provided. According to figures from the Ministry of the Interior, 1,186 elected officials were targeted in the first eleven months of 2021, including 162 parliamentarians and 605 mayors or deputies victims of physical attacks, an increase of 47% compared to 2020. 419 outrages were also recorded (+ 30%).
Strengthening the protection of homes and hotlines
The deputy of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon Stéphane Claireaux (LREM) was attacked Sunday by projectiles in front of his home in Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon launched by demonstrators against the health pass, an attack which according to him “resembled a stoning ”. Traveling to Nice, Emmanuel Macron denounced Monday an “unacceptable” and “intolerable” aggression, deploring “the intensification of violence” against elected officials.
On December 29, it was the LREM deputy for Oise Pascal Bois in Chambly who denounced the fire in his personal garage, mainly because of his support for the policy Gérald Darmanin had announced in the wake of a strengthening of the protection of homes and offices of deputies, “in the context of the examination of the draft law of the vaccine pass”. “Unfortunately and for a few years there has been an increase in attacks on elected officials, the death of the mayor of Signes demonstrates it,” he added on Monday. In 2019, a man overthrew the mayor of this commune in the Var, Jean-Mathieu Michel, with his van after illegally unloading rubble.