“A worrying decline in respect for the authorities”
After the fire in his home on March 22, Yannick Morez had resigned and pointed the finger at the “lack of state support“. EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP COUNTERPOINT – This crisis of…
“A worrying decline in respect for the authorities”
After the fire in his home on March 22, Yannick Morez had resigned and pointed the finger at the “
lack of state support“. EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP
COUNTERPOINT – This crisis of authority has as its corollary a crisis of good citizenship which does not only affect the youngest.
Mid-term, 1,293 mayors elected in 2020 (out of some 35,000) have already given up their aprons. The resignation of the mayor of Saint-Brévin after the fire at his home caused a political and media shock.
But behind this example, there is a growing fed up of elected officials who are victims of violence, often verbal, more and more physical, and whose loved ones and families are also the target. From the mayor of Val-de-Reuil accused of racism by a family which refuses a solution found for one of its disabled children, to that of Neuilly treated as “criminal” by a resident annoyed by a construction site, the testimonies are legion. From the mayor “within range of yelling” to the intimidated and attacked mayor, there is a threshold that has been crossed. They are not the only ones targeted.
Stoned law enforcement, extortionate pharmacists, doctors taken to task, teachers threatened by students or denounced by parents who cannot bear a remark made to their children, it is all the agents of authority who…
