The left-wing 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 municipality, who 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 expected for this "march" scheduled from 17 pm on a square of this seaside resort of 14,000 inhabitants.
Yannick Morez, the mayor (DVD) resigned, announced in a statement on his Facebook page that he will speak at 18 p.m. in front of City Hall, but that neither he nor his municipal team will take part in this march. While thanking the elected officials who give him their support, he "nevertheless regrets the political recovery, especially by the far left, of this march which was initially intended to be transpartisan". "I also regret the discretion of the right on this issue," he wrote.
Since his shock hearing by the Senate Law Commission and a meeting at Matignon with Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne on May 17, the elected official has not spoken publicly. In front of the senators, this doctor by profession detailed at length each of the threats of the extreme right of which he has been victim since the officialization, at the end of 2021, of the transfer near a school in his commune of a reception center for asylum seekers (Cada) that already existed in Saint-Brévin since 2016.
"A real failure for the Republic and for the State"
He has repeatedly expressed his feeling of having been "abandoned" by the services of the State while the demonstrations organized by a small collective of inhabitants multiplied, which were then joined by small groups of extreme right from other regions, in particular from the movement of Reconquest!, the party of Eric 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, whose facade was also hit by flames while he slept there with his family.
In the absence 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 being at his side," denounce the left-wing organizations in their call for the rally in Saint-Brévin.
Condemning "the lack of commitment of the State to support the elected representatives of the Republic", the signatories refuse "to see our democracy thus weakened and attacked by an increasingly trivialized far right". According to the Ministry of the Interior, acts of physical or verbal violence against elected officials increased by 32% in 2022.
