Alexandre Chauveau / Photo credits: GARDEL Bertrand / hemis.fr / hemis.fr / Hemis via AFP
It is in a climate of concern that the 105th Congress of Mayors of France opens on Tuesday at the Porte de Versailles in Paris. Faced with particularly difficult operating conditions, they denounce, nearly 1,500 mayors have resigned since 2020.
An ear to listen to mayors who are victims of violence. The Minister of Local Authorities, Dominique Faure, announced the launch this Monday of a psychological support desk open 7 days a week from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Since the start of the year, 2,387 attacks on elected officials have been recorded. The problem is such that the Association of Mayors of France organizes training with the GIGN or the RAID to learn how to defuse conflict situations.
Increasing violence
Being mayor means being on the front line, in extremely difficult conditions. With an increasingly time-consuming commitment, compensation considered insufficient by half of the city councilors and administrators more demanding than before, many denounce increasing aggressiveness and increasing violence: +32% of incidents observed between 2021 and 2022.
Philippe Laurent, vice-president of the Association of Mayors of France, calls for stronger and faster sanctions in the event of attacks against elected officials. “The criminal chain is much too long. A sanction taken a year or a year and a half later does not have much value. Then, in the longer term, there is a need to rediscover a civic sense, a sense of citizenship which can only be found in the long term through education,” he says.
A feeling of dispossession of their power of action
The feeling of being dispossessed of their power of action is the other main reason for mayors’ discomfort. A consequence of financial constraints imposed by the State, such as the abolition of the housing tax or the increase in public sector salaries. But also regulations considered boring and sometimes contradictory. Since 2020, 450 mayors have resigned each year during their mandate.