The percentage had struck people’s minds. Between 2021 and 2022, verbal or physical attacks against local elected officials, in particular mayors and their deputies, saw a jump of 32%, going from 1,720 to 2,265. The statistics presented by the Minister Delegate responsible for local authorities, Dominique Faure, Sunday November 19, in The Sunday Journal, show that it was not an accident. As of November 12, 2,387 attacks on elected officials were recorded. This suggests a toll exceeding 2,600 attacks at the end of 2023, an increase of around 15% compared to 2022. Physical violence, however, remains a minority.
A peak was observed during the urban violence that occurred in the summer, after the death of Nahel M. in Nanterre. Sciences Po researchers Marco Oberti and Maela Guillaume Le Gall established that 555 cities were affected. The survey conducted by the Sciences Po Political Research Center (Cevipof) for the Association of Mayors of France (AMF) and the ministry responsible for local authorities, including The world delivers the conclusions, covers a wider panel: 33,322 elected officials were contacted and 7,992 responded at least partially. And the results confirm the increase in violence suffered by elected officials.
Seven out of ten mayors (69%) say they have been victims of incivility (rudeness, aggressiveness, etc.) for several months. This is 6 points more in one year and 16 points since 2020. Four in ten (41%) report verbal or written threats (respectively, + 2 points and + 13 points); 39% experienced insults (+2 points) or insults (+10); 27% of attacks on social networks or the Internet (as in 2022, but 7 points more than in 2020); 19% of moral harassment (+ 4 and + 7 points)… Only 34% of municipalities do not report attacks on public property (− 2 and − 5 points).
Call to file a complaint
David Lisnard (Les Républicains), president of the Association of Mayors of France, organizer of 105e congress of mayors which is to be held from November 20 to 23 in Paris, mentions “a democratic crisis”. “It is often a minority of inhabitantsnotes the mayor of Cannes (Alpes-Maritimes), who do not behave like citizens but as consumers of public space, even as retarded and capricious adolescents. » According to him, this also reflects “regalian impotence” of State.
Director of Cevipof, Martial Foucault, however, calls for caution in interpreting the statistics. The reference point only dates from 2019, he points out, which reduces the perspective of analysis. Then, if many local elected officials are reluctant to file a complaint, the growing awareness of this social fact at the same time pushes elected officials not to let it pass.
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