The Minister in charge of Territorial Communities Dominique Faure detailed Friday before the mayors of medium-sized cities a plan of five million euros aimed at strengthening the protection of elected officials, without however managing to convince them. The first measures of this plan had already been announced shortly after the arson attack on the home of the mayor of Saint-Brevin-les-Pins (Loire-Atlantique), in particular the creation of 3,400 referents “attacks on elected officials” in police stations and gendarmeries, as well as the reinforcement of the “alarm-elected” system.
Legal and psychological protection
To this, Dominique Faure adds legal and psychological protection. “I have identified psychological fragility in mayors,” said the minister in Le Creusot (Saône-et-Loire) on the occasion of the Congress of Cities of France, which brings together municipalities of 10,000 to 100,000 inhabitants. A single number will thus be made available to elected officials. This plan, with a budget of five million euros, also introduces automatic functional protection. “Today, when a mayor takes legal action, it may incur costs and he may not have legal protection. This is why we are going to make it automatic”, declared Dominique Faure in an interview with the World.
Elected officials will therefore no longer need to go through a deliberation of the municipal council as is the case today. Insurance costs will also be borne by the State for all municipalities with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants, compared to 3,500 today. The minister also announced the installation, at a cost of three million euros, of surveillance cameras and devices “to secure the premises in front of the town hall or the mayor’s residence”, at the request of the prosecutor. “We need to be able to find offenders much more easily,” she said.
Law “in the fall”
On the judicial level, the new measures also aim to “strengthen relations between mayors and prosecutors”. Eagerly awaited on the ground, the alignment of criminal sanctions against the perpetrators of attacks on elected officials with those provided for in the event of attacks on uniformed officers will be the subject of a law “in the fall “, said Dominique Faure. But “all the regulations in the world would be nothing without a civic shock,” she added. “The state can do a lot, but we need the 99.5% of the population who are not violent to come with us: a citizen who reports a site or an 11-year-old kid who disrespects the mayor . All our fellow citizens must grasp our values,” she said.
The announcements, however, left the representatives of Cities of France in expectation. “It’s an interesting first step,” reacted to AFP Gil Avérous, president of the association and LR mayor of Châteauroux. “But we expect a global reflection between the mayors and the government” on the basis of the “Pact of Creusot” that Cities of France adopted during its congress. This pact requires in particular a housing policy aimed at “building and renovating”, detailed Jean-François Debat, deputy president of the association and socialist mayor of Bourg-en-Bresse. “The government has punctured a billion euros by making us bear the decline of the APL”, he regretted.
The pact also advocates “support for parenthood” to help families in the education of children, as well as the return of a “local police” and the strengthening of police and judicial resources, in particular against drug trafficking. , added Jean-François Debat. “Most of these measures were in the Borloo plan” for the suburbs which had not been retained in 2018 by the government. “We lost five years”, he scolded, adding: “The promises of the State, it is we who will pay them”. “We will share the costs,” replied Dominique Faure. “But it’s not a bottomless pit. We have 3 trillion in debt.”