It’s official. The State was ordered to pay 1.2 million euros to the city and metropolis of Toulouse by the Administrative Court of Toulouse, this Wednesday, April 27. A heavy condemnation for the damage suffered during the various demonstrations of the Yellow Vests.
“I think it would be unfair for all of this to be supported by the local taxpayer”, explains Jean-Luc Moudenc, the LR mayor of Toulousewhich recalls that the “objective” of the Yellow Vests was not to denounce “a municipal problem”, “but indeed to bring claims on the national level”.
“The responsibilities are at the national level”
For him, it is therefore “at the national level that the responsibilities lie”, he told CNEWS, while Toulouse is the city just behind Paris where the Yellow Vests have done the most damage.
In a press release sent this Wednesday evening to his constituents, the elected Les Républicains welcomes this “victory for the people of Toulouse and against those who think that breaking is a democratic expression”.
“Faced with the thugs who committed, during several “black Saturdays”, numerous degradations in Toulouse, with the destruction of street furniture, parking meters and the roadway, I could not tolerate impunity”, he writes again, ensuring to have “opposed for months” to these “wild demonstrations”.
A victory, even if the Administrative Court did not take into account all the damage. The total amount of the breakage had indeed been estimated at 4 million euros: bitumen, sidewalks or parking meters were very damaged.
Traders compensated in turn?
First conviction of the State, it was eagerly awaited and could open the door to new compensation. This is in any case what thinks Philippe Léon, the president of the Federation of traders of Toulouse, for whom “the State was guilty of not having been able to maintain order during these demonstrations”.
“In the event that the right to compensation will be definitively recognized by the Administrative Court, a collective request from the Federation of Toulouse traders is possible”, he adds.
In the meantime, neither the State nor the city of Toulouse wished to appeal the Court’s decision.