Yanis Darras
modified to
9:28 a.m., December 7, 2023
Simple fight that degenerated or racist act? Three weeks after Thomas’ death in Crépol, a small village in Drôme near the town of Romans-sur-Isère, the investigation continues. The death of the 16-year-old young man caused a shock wave in the country and in the political class, particularly among the mayor of the neighboring town, Marie-Hélène Thoraval.
The diverse-right elected official has made numerous statements in the press in recent days on the subject of delinquency, calling on the country to “face reality”, explaining that she has problems in the sensitive district of the city with “around a hundred young people, including around forty very tough young people.
“We cannot say that the State has done nothing” for sensitive neighborhoods
Since her remarks, the mayor has faced intimidation and even received death threats. “I don’t feel very free,” she confides on the set of La Grande interview Europe 1-CNews. “I understand that my words could have been disturbing, but I just expressed what the reality and the daily lives of many French people were,” she adds to Sonia Mabrouk.
The difficulties of the town of Romans-sur-Isère have been brought to the forefront in recent days, while some of the suspects in the murder of Thomas come from La Monnaie, a sensitive district of the city. “We cannot say that the State did nothing,” she emphasizes. “The communities have contributed. We have intervened a lot in these neighborhoods, these situations of groups of delinquents who, I remind you, are a minority who ruin the life of a majority”, but without result, judges the mayor.
Putting security back at the heart of city policy
“I just say one thing: insecurity is not a feeling, it is a lived reality,” she assures, thus responding to the words of Élisabeth Borne who believes that “medium-sized towns and the countryside do not are not spared from this feeling that violence is increasing.
Marie-Hélène Thoraval now denounces public policies which attempt to buy social peace via subsidies, now calling for “to reconsider city policy today through the prism of security”.