The left parties are calling for a large rally this Wednesday in Saint-Brevin-les-Pins (Loire-Atlantique). They want to support the resigning mayor of this commune, which has become the symbol of local elected officials who are victims of violence. The objective is also to denounce “the threat of the extreme right”.
The boss of the PS, Olivier Faure, his communist counterpart, Fabien Roussel, and the national secretary of EELV, Marine Tondelier, are particularly expected for this “march” scheduled from 5 p.m. on a square in this seaside resort of 14,000 residents.
Yannick Morez, the resigning mayor (DVD), announced in a press release on his page Facebook that he will speak at 6 p.m. in front of the town hall, but that neither he nor his municipal team will take part in this march. While thanking the elected officials who support him, he “regrets nevertheless the political recovery, in particular by the far left, of this march which was initially intended to be transpartisan”. “I also regret the discretion of the right on this theme,” he wrote.
From his shock audition by the Senate law commission and an interview at Matignon with Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne, on May 17, the elected official no longer spoke publicly. Before the senators, this doctor by profession detailed at length each of the threats from the far right of which he has been the victim since the formalization, at the end of 2021, of the transfer near a school in his town of a reception center for asylum seekers (Cada) which had already existed in Saint-Brévin since 2016.
“A real failure for the Republic and for the State”
He repeatedly expressed his feeling of having been “abandoned” by state services as the demonstrations organized by a small group of residents multiplied, which were then joined by far-right groups from other regions, in particular from the movement of Reconquest!, the party of Éric Zemmour.
Accompanied by an extremely virulent campaign on social networks, these attacks culminated on March 22 in the early morning with the burning of two vehicles of the mayor in front of his home, the facade of which was also affected by the flames while there slept with family.
For lack of support from the public authorities, Yannick Morez announced his irrevocable decision to resign and leave the city with his family. This decision was “taken under the threat of the extreme right” and “constitutes a real failure for the Republic and for the State which has proved incapable of ensuring the safety of the elected official and of being at his sides”, denounce the left-wing organizations in their call for a rally in Saint-Brévin.
Condemning “the lack of commitment of the State to support the elected officials of the Republic”, the signatories refuse “to see our democracy thus weakened and attacked by an increasingly trivialized extreme right”. According to the Ministry of the Interior, acts of physical or verbal violence against elected officials increased by 32% in 2022.