“The red line of insult, defamation, lies and dishonesty has been crossed. » It is with this sentence that Benoît Payan, the various left-wing mayor of Marseille, announced, Tuesday, November 7, his decision to file a complaint for insult and defamation against the senator of Bouches-du-Rhône Stéphane Le Rudulier, departmental secretary of the Les Républicains (LR) federation.
The former mayor of Rognac, a small town about thirty kilometers from Marseille, is used to shocking proposals. In October, he demanded the dissolution of La France insoumise and the New Anticapitalist Party for “apology of terrorism”, which earned him an invitation to the show “Touche pas à mon poste”, presented by Cyril Hanouna on C8. Saturday November 4, in an interview with Figaroit’s a “electroshock” security that the senator requests for Marseille. A metropolis that he only visits occasionally, but which, in the absence of local LR leadership, now seems to attract his political attention.
Jumbled together, Stéphane Le Rudulier gives his opinion on the violence in Marseille football, the ravages of and anti-Semitism which is becoming commonplace. So many subjects on which he proposes radical solutions such as “displaying the faces of convicted drug dealers in transport” or dissolution “ of the most violent groups of supporters ».
“Deliberately provocative lies”
But it is on the question of insecurity and the fight against anti-Semitism that he makes his most severe attacks against the mayor of Marseille. “ The biggest person responsible for the wildness of Marseille is its mayor, Benoît Payan, who refuses video surveillance (…) He sets up shooting rooms in the heart of the city, which normalizes drug consumption and trafficking. Indirectly, the mayor places himself on the side of drug traffickers,” accuses Stéphane Le Rudulier.
“By stating that I was “on the side of the drug traffickers” (…)Stéphane Le Rudulier does not simply step out of his role as an elected official, he shames his mandate”, Benoît Payan is indignant. Faced with the accusations, the mayor of Marseille, leader of a left-wing majority elected in July 2020, defends his results, with supporting figures: “With all due respect to those who left Marseille abandoned for decades, the city has never done so much for security. We have increased the number of municipal police officers by 30%, quadrupled the night brigade and developed the second network of video protection cameras in France in partnership with the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin.argues the Marseille elected official, who evokes “deliberately provocative lies” from Stéphane Le Rudulier.
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