Guillaume Richard is an LR municipal councilor and metropolitan councilor in Nantes.
10 years ago, Nantes was the favorite city of the French.
Today, the people of Nantes are angry.
They miss the time of a marvelous, gentle, enterprising, welcoming city.
The local kiosks speak only of insecurity in Nantes.
The national press no longer speaks of insecurity without citing Nantes.
On September 24, a 41-year-old woman was raped by two Sudanese men.
For the people of Nantes, it's the last straw that broke the camel's back.
Everyone wonders and wonders how we got there, so quickly.
It is true, as in all the big cities of France, insecurity is progressing.
Certainly.
But why did Nantes turn to violence?
The natural evolution of the city is one cause.
Like any large metropolis in France, Nantes has experienced a major demographic surge.
The attractiveness has enabled the economic dynamism carried by local businesses and the region, but has also greatly increased the number of inhabitants.
And when the city evolves, public policies must evolve.
Town planning, neighborhood renovation, ecology but also and above all safety.
This is what we ask of our politicians: a clear vision of what is becoming of a territory in order to anticipate and predict.
Vision, a weak point since 2014. At the time, we heard the first shots in working-class neighborhoods and the new mayor did not react.
Don't offend, don't decide, we'll see later.
At the same time, Nantes became the HQ of the protest against the Notre-Dame-des-Landes airport.
The occasional demonstrations before 2014 have become permanent, every Saturday, for more than 2 years.
At the time of the migration crisis, Johanna Rolland, mayor of Nantes, advocates an unconditional welcoming speech.
She is heard.
Several hundred migrants cross the country to settle directly in Nantes.
William Richard
The city takes weak positions so as not to offend Europe-Ecologie-Les-Verts, a longtime ally, which is leading the anti-airport operation.
The mayor's laissez-faire attitude marks the first stone in the destruction of local authority: say nothing, do nothing.
Shopkeepers no longer work on Saturdays, they barricade their businesses with wooden planks.
Banks and insurance companies are turning their agencies into bunkers.
And the municipal majority, for its part, is still struggling to condemn the excesses.
“It is those who talk about insecurity who create the feeling of insecurity.”
The city continues to be broken.
But that's just a feeling.
Faced with such violence, the airport will not be built, despite the local referendum which was to ratify it.
But the downtown protests and break-ins continue.
The yellow vests take over the demonstrations.
Regional and national gatherings take place in Nantes.
The local authority being lacking, the city becomes the
spot
of the ultra-left.
This first experience of violence, which lasted two years, set the anchor point for an unprecedented crisis of authority.
Then comes the migration crisis known throughout Europe.
At that time, Johanna Rolland, mayor of Nantes, advocated an unconditional welcoming speech.
She is heard.
Several hundred migrants cross the country to settle directly in Nantes.
But the promised Eldorado is not.
Migrants crowd into hastily built slums in the city center.
Sanitary conditions are appalling and precariousness unbearable.
No anticipation of policies, again.
The welcome speech is strong, is beautiful, but the reality is violent.
On the street, the mostly male migrants are left to fend for themselves.
Drugs, sexual assault, everything explodes.
The town hall votes emergency budgets instead of voting anticipation budgets.
3 million are decided at the end of 2018 to rehouse migrants.
A bandage on a wooden leg to restore visual comfort: that we no longer see the tents and the misery they shelter in the city center.
But nothing is settled.
The problem is moved, and every day, these new delinquents hang around and feed the various facts.
The left did not anticipate the evolution of the city, for lack of vision.
The left fights, it does not direct and does not project.
It's not his DNA.
William Richard
The Nantes security assistant even recognizes a link between the arrival of migrants on the metropolitan territory and the explosion of sexual crimes.
An admission of unconsciousness.
At the same time, priority neighborhoods are on the rise.
Much more than before, despite the massive renovations.
However, the popular district of Malakoff had been rehabilitated in the 2010s.
The municipality meets the requirements of urban fashion, employs great Parisian architects, but forgets to work on security issues.
Among the most precarious of the metropolis, the inhabitants ultimately inherit a more dangerous district.
Environmentalists are removing cars from neighborhoods, light from streetlights.
The place is made for dealers who are no longer disturbed, an ecology to the detriment of the weakest.
No anticipation on the choices, the neighborhood has even become inaccessible to municipal police since 2016. Anyway, they are too few and only share one taser for three, facing the thugs armed with Kalashnikovs.
No, ridicule does not kill.
Other neighborhoods are getting a makeover.
The Breil district.
Again, the aesthetics are restored.
This will also benefit dealers, despite the failure of previous rehabilitations.
The residents are on edge.
The left did not anticipate the evolution of the city, for lack of vision.
The left fights, it does not direct and does not project.
It's not his DNA.
The consequence is dramatic: increasing the number of police officers or video surveillance cameras is no longer even a sufficient solution.
It will be necessary to rethink all the districts, the policy of the city and establish a shock of security.
But Nantes is still standing.
It is one of the cities with the greatest potential in France.
By its geographical location, its economic dynamism, and by the people of Nantes.
The history of the city reminds us that it has known difficult periods, and that it has always been able to recover.
We are coming to a pivotal period where everything must change.
Newspeak, empress of all Johanna Rolland's speeches, will not hold.
Nantes residents are looking for a paradigm shift that must happen quickly, very quickly.
