View of reality. In any case, this is how many mayors or local elected officials view their mandate. Robert Ménard is one of them, convinced that the Town Hall of Béziers (Hérault) is a wonderful place for observing the ills that blight society. After having supported Marine Le Pen during the 2022 presidential election, the former journalist, ex-secretary general of Reporters Without Borders from the left, distanced himself to the point of considering today that the application of RN program would be “dangerous for our budgetary situation”. As for our institutions, he says he does not fear their shaken by the coming to power of the Lepenist party but considers their image already damaged by a multitude of episodes which he details here. Interview.
L’Express: A certain number of state services seem to have become invisible to some French people in certain territories of the Republic. Is this a phenomenon that you observe, as mayor of Béziers? And what are the consequences?
Robert Menard: I am not a lax mayor, to say the least. I’m even a little authoritarian sometimes. When I was elected in 2014, the city had less than thirty municipal police officers who did not work evenings or weekends. Today there are 124 of them, they are armed and work twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year. Likewise, Béziers was equipped with 30 video surveillance cameras. We have 440 today. All of this cost taxpayers a lot of money. Allow me also to point out that it is normally up to the State to ensure security, and not to the cities, but let’s move on.
Despite these significant efforts, municipal police cannot do their job as effectively as we would like. You should know that they still do not have access to a certain number of files (that of stolen vehicles or wanted people, for example); they cannot carry out identity checks, they do not have the right to open a car trunk… In short, we pay very dearly for municipal police officers who have too limited powers, and this in the name of defense freedoms. It’s incomprehensible. And this discredits the action of the police! That must change !
The Constitutional Council has been the target of much criticism in recent years. Do our institutions seem to you to be understood by citizens?
The episode of the Immigration law has obviously damaged the image that some of our fellow citizens had of the Constitutional Council. Immigration is a concern for many. I am mayor of a provincial town of 80,000 inhabitants. For me, this is the primary concern, along with purchasing power. And let me add that those who worry about this are not necessarily xenophobes. When this law was passed in Parliament by, in particular, the majority deputies, Emmanuel Macron immediately referred the matter to the Constitutional Council, which challenged a large part of it. Therefore, people are entitled to ask: who has the real power? Has the head of state not demonstrated total duplicity? This is simply incomprehensible to ordinary mortals! After that, you can always talk to them about the “wise men” of the Constitutional Council…
Let’s take another example. As mayor, I was warned last year by my civil status service that a gentleman who presents himself to get married is subject to an obligation to leave French territory (OQTF). Furthermore, this same person from the town hall informs us that he had problems with the French police because he committed thefts and violence. I know well that the European Convention on Human Rights obliges me, whatever the circumstances, to marry anyone who requests it. This is a matter of sacrosanct individual freedom. In short, I am being asked to carry out an official act for someone who should be deported. During the week preceding this “non-marriage”, I called the sub-prefect, the prefect, the Minister of the Interior, the Minister of Justice telling them: “Because you did not expel this man , I risk a fine, a prison sentence and even the revocation of my mandate as mayor if I do not marry him…” I received no help and I refused to marry him despite the risks involved. Only to learn a few days later – but too late – that he had finally been expelled. How can we not conclude that we are walking on our heads with these ludicrous rules of law?
We signed the European Convention on Human Rights with reservations… which we ended up lifting! And that’s where we are. I am not one of those who deny the interest of this convention: boss of Reporters Without Borders, it has helped me for more than twenty years to get people out of prison. But limits must be set when the rule of law turns against evidence and common sense. All this fuels protest votes and, above all, widespread distrust. I don’t want a society where we hate all judges, all elected officials, all journalists!
Today, some, particularly among the elites, argue that voting for the RN would mean not taking the full measure of the danger that this would represent for our institutions. Does this argument seem effective to you?
This is an argument that seems to me both false and ineffective. False because the arrival of the RN to power seems to me less dangerous for our institutions and our democracy than for our budgetary situation! If they implemented the announced program, it would significantly complicate our economic situation. That being said, Jordan Bardella’s spectacular backpedaling (on pensions, on the reduction in VAT for basic necessities, etc.) suggests that the RN can return to almost everything that constituted its program yesterday.
Secondly, saying that voting RN would endanger our institutions is ineffective. It’s like calling people “fascists”, or saying, like Elisabeth Borne, that the current RN is “the heir of Pétain”. This rhetoric is stupid, contemptuous, and it fuels the lawsuit against the elites! This four-penny morality is, on the contrary, a machine for producing the RN vote.
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