Despite the abandonment of the controversial refugee reception project in Callac (Côtes-d’Armor), the tension is still palpable in central Brittany. At the end of January, the editorial staff of the weekly The Poher, based in Carhaix (Finistère), received by email a message “with a racist connotation and particularly threatening and offensive”, she indicated on Tuesday on its website. Entitled “Chartier on va te crever”, the message was aimed at Erwan Chartier-Le Floc’h, historian and editor-in-chief of the weekly founded in 1996.
“It is inadmissible to see journalists insulted or threatened, which is why we took legal action”, underlines the editorial staff of the poherspecifying that a complaint for death threats had been filed the same day at the gendarmerie of Carhaix.
“We did our job as journalists”
These threats are set against the background of the Horizons project. Financed by a private fund, the initiative aimed to revitalize the rural town of Callac with the reception over several years of dozens of refugees in disused buildings of the town. Target of the far right, the project was finally abandoned in early January by the mayor of Callac, who preferred to give up after threats received by several elected officials. “Personally, I was for the project but it was no longer tenable, the city council was going to fall,” he said.
It is in this tense climate that the editorial staff of Le Poher reported to its readers on the news surrounding this project by interviewing residents and elected officials. “Our intention was not to take sides for or against this project or to comment on the legitimacy of defending or criticizing it, but, let us repeat, to report”, assures the editorial staff.
“We did our job as journalists. From local journalists, we who know this territory where we work daily”, continues the team of the poher, who now asks “only to continue to do his job as a journalist calmly and to report on the news of this territory without pressure of any kind and wherever it comes from. »