The mayor of the seaside resort said he had received death threats by anonymous mail. After the resignation of Yannick Morez, mayor of Saint-Brévin-les-Pins and victim of numerous pressures by a far-right collective, the safety of elected officials, especially local ones, raises questions. At the microphone of Europe 1, Franck Louvrier, LR mayor of La Baule, shares his feelings about “a crisis of authority”.
Are local elected officials in danger? While the case of Yannick Morez – mayor of Saint-Brévin, threatened, insulted and whose house was burned down – was discussed up to the top of the state, another mayor of Loire-Atlantique, Franck Louvrier, is said to be the target of death threats. In his mailbox, the elected official found a letter this month addressed personally to the town hall in which there were two photos of the decapitated head of Samuel Paty and a third photo of the Bataclan massacre with the interrogation written in red “Perhaps tomorrow in La Baule?”.
If he confides to the microphone of Europe 1 this Saturday that he is not particularly worried about the safety of the Baulois, Franck Louvrier nevertheless regrets a growing feeling of insecurity. “It is above all that it also reflects that the tricolor scarf does not protect, any more than the blouse or the uniform. We have seen it lately, we were, as we commonly said, within reach of slaps. Now , we are within reach of violent and sometimes even criminal acts,” he said. “Violence sometimes is argument instead of debate and argument against argument.”
Sanctions and zero tolerance
For the mayor LR of La Baule and ex-communicator of Nicolas Sarkozy, the causes of this violence against elected officials are multiple but it is necessary to apply sanctions, with in some cases aggravating circumstances, such as when violence and threats target government officials, police officers, firefighters and even medical personnel. “We must seize the subject so that we can strongly sanction, so that we can show that the State must be respected”, he insists at the microphone of Europe 1.
An investigation is currently underway according to the elected official via the Nantes judicial police in order to determine the author or authors of the mail to which he was addressed.