Prime Minister Gabriel Attal was clear last week: “Local elected official is the greatest commitment”, but it also means being “on the front line in the face of a society that is being brutalized”.
After the Senate, the National Assembly is considering this Tuesday a series of measures to better protect local elected officials, who are increasingly faced with violence, the beginnings of a project aimed at making their status more attractive.
This text from the Senate, where it was adopted at first reading, responds to an increase in hostile acts, ranging from insults to physical attacks.
Last year, the arson attack on the home of the mayor of Saint-Brévin-les-Pins (Loire-Atlantique) and the car-ramming attack on the home of the mayor of L'Haÿ-les-Roses (Val- de-Marne), Vincent Jeanbrun, had left their mark.
It is a “message to the mayors of small towns and to all those local elected officials suffering from this violence and incivility”, argues the Renaissance du Nord MP Violette Spillebout, rapporteur of the text to the Assembly.
Toughening of sentences
Among its flagship measures, the proposed law aligns the sanctions provided for in the event of violence against local elected officials with those targeting holders of public authority such as the police.
These could thus go up to seven years of imprisonment and a fine of 100,000 euros in the event of incapacity for work for more than eight days.
In the case of public insults, a community service penalty is created, with an aggravating circumstance for cases of harassment, particularly online, when the victim holds an elective mandate.
In committee, the deputies extended the system to “insults”.
The limitation periods are also extended in cases of insults and public defamation, going from three months to one year.
The deputies specified in committee that this measure would apply when the victim holds an elective mandate or is a candidate for a mandate.
Rare dissonant voices around a rather consensual text, LFI deputies said they were worried about a proposed law which could “nourish the idea of exceptional justice for elected officials”.
But the current legislation is no longer adapted to the situation of political figures who must be able to “ensure their dignity is respected”, retorts Violette Spillebout.
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The MP spoke about her own story in committee, explaining that she had been confronted with “the threat of disseminating pornographic photos” during the last municipal campaign in Lille, photos “which do not exist” but at the heart of a rumor.
“You know, she killed elected officials, rumor has it.”
The text also plans to improve the support for elected officials who are victims of attacks or insults.
The “functional protection” existing for public officials would thus be automatically granted, upon request, to local elected officials with an executive mandate.
A provision extends its benefit to candidates in local or national elections.
And provides for reimbursement by the State of possible costs incurred by candidates for their security during a campaign, whatever the result of the election.
A transpartisan text
The deputies will not fail to mention during the debates their wish for a broader reform of the status of local elected officials, to deal with the vocations crisis which is weighing down local democracy.
“We tabled a bill on February 2 with Sébastien Jumel”, communist deputy for Seine-Maritime, indicated Violette Spillebout, hoping that it could be examined in the Assembly during a slot dedicated to transpartisan texts at the end March.
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Their text is inspired by a report they recently co-authored, calling for a “shock of attractiveness” of local mandates.
The two elected officials pleaded in particular for the allocation of “citizen commitment compensation” to all municipal councilors without delegation, currently volunteers.
And for the alignment of the status of elected officials with that of “protected employees”, such as union delegates.
Faced with the “hyper-judicialization” of politics, they also advocated a reform of “the definition of conflict of interest”.
In his general policy speech, Gabriel Attal said he wanted to build on this work, as well as that of Senator Françoise Gatel.
“I want to put in place a real status for local elected officials allowing elected officials to finally be better protected, better compensated, better valued.”