Madam Prime Minister,
On the night of Tuesday March 21, a new stage was reached in the escalation of violence against elected officials, associations and municipalities that welcome foreigners to our country. The home of the mayor of Saint-Brévin, in Loire-Atlantique, was the direct target of a violent attack which could have led in the middle of the night to a deadly tragedy for this elected official and his family.
For the simple reason that with its unanimous municipal council, all political tendencies taken together, it is determined to continue to welcome asylum seekers to its commune in the public tranquility.
For many months, these attacks have been increasing, from the most insidious to the most visible. Elected officials receive threats, are intimidated even in front of their homes. The parents of the pupils of the communes concerned are recipients of messages making them bear the responsibility for imaginary dangers for the children in the event of the arrival of foreigners. Members of associations, local elected officials, journalists, no one is spared.
Since the pressures of the extreme right in its various forms seemed to have succeeded in a Breton commune which suffered an outburst of manipulation, demonstrations are now regularly organized by an extreme right party in front of our reception centers : a few weeks ago in Yvelines; in Saint-Brévin precisely, shortly before the tragedy of March 21. Each time these demonstrations are little attended, the mobilization of the inhabitants being much higher.
But this barnum of hatred gives rise to an outpouring of hate speech and constitutes a direct incitement to action by designating places and people – foreigners and their families, municipal teams and associations – to vindictiveness. It is relayed by calls for the development of coordinated actions on the national territory, with the sole objective of stirring up hatred and destabilizing the public authorities.
A few weeks ago, the reception center for asylum seekers in Bègles of France Terre d’Asile and citizen hosts were victims of racist and threatening tags signed by a far-right group. As experienced by the member associations of the Federation of Solidarity Actors, the list of living spaces in which these actions are multiplying is getting longer every day.
Destabilization attempts
Under these conditions, our associations are increasingly confronted, everywhere on the national territory, with the hesitations of the elected officials when committing to the installation of reception places under the title of a national policy, which we share , reception better distributed throughout the national territory. Not because they wouldn’t want to host. They know too well the positive effects of such receptions for the vitality of their municipalities, from schools to seniors. But because they now fear that their communities, themselves and their families will be abandoned to the violence of hatemongers.
Faced with these attempts at destabilization, we need more than ever the determination and visible mobilization of the State, yours and that of the whole government. Our associations, professionals and volunteers, elected officials, residents, involved or not in welcoming, need it. The inhabitants who aspire to tranquility need it.
We ask you in this context to mobilize fully and actively the services of the State to accompany – politically, materially, judicially – more strongly than ever elected officials, associations and inhabitants in the organized reception of foreigners in our country and to put an end to the action of parties, groups and individuals who propagate hatred and violence against foreigners, the municipalities and associations that welcome them to reaffirm the founding values of our democratic, humanist, fraternal Republic.
Please, Madam Prime Minister, receive the expression of our consideration.
*Najat Vallaud-Belkacem is president of France Terre d’Asile. Pascal Brice is president of the Federation of Solidarity Actors.