The mayor of Chalifert (Seine-et-Marne) was attacked with fists on Monday, August 24 by one of his constituents, who was arrested and placed in custody, a police source said on Tuesday.
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The images of the assault, filmed and broadcast on social networks, show Laurent Simon, the mayor of this town of about 1,200 inhabitants, cornered against a portal: a resident hits him with his fists, in the face and body, while the wife of the alleged perpetrator attempts to intervene.
A third person films the scene a few meters away, without intervening. According to the first elements of the investigation, the altercation, which took place on Monday around 7:30 p.m., follows the fire of the car of this resident, parked in front of his pavilion which was also tagged, according to a police source. " There is a long-standing problem of anarchic parking of which this resident complains, who accuses the mayor of not managing parking in the village ", indicates this source.
When he crosses the city council, the day after the fire in his vehicle, the citizen takes him to task and the tone rises to come to blows, she continues. The hearings of the mayor without a label of 56 years, and of the resident (45 years) continued Tuesday afternoon. Asked by AFP, Mr. Simon was not reachable for the time being.
Meeting next Tuesday in Matignon
" The use of violence against elected officials exercising their mandate is becoming systematic, " lamented in a statement Stéphane Beaudet, the president of the association of mayors of Ile-de-France (AMIF), denouncing councilors reduced to the rank of " Punching bag ". “ New and scandalous aggression against an elected representative of the Republic! Violence is lethal for our democracy, its condemnation must be firm ”, reacted the President of the National Assembly Richard Ferrand in a tweet.
For her part, Valérie Pécresse, the president of the Ile-de-France region, estimated in a tweet that “ the commitment of the mayors leads them to confront outbursts of violence that is less and less contained. "Before this new aggression, the Association of Mayors of France (AMF) recalled that" 233 elected officials have already suffered an act of violence "in 2020. An intergovernmental meeting on this subject, long demanded by associations of elected officials , is to be held next Tuesday in Matignon.