“A Throwback to the Republic”. The resignation of the mayor Saint-Brévin, Yannick Morez, has shocked French public opinion. He has left the Government of Emmanuel Macronaccused of inaction in the face of the far-right harassment that this mayor suffered for hosting a refugee center. In recent months, this small town in northwestern France has become the scene of protests and violent actions by neo-Nazi groups and militants of the xenophobic party Reconquest by Eric Zemmour. The announcement of his resignation represents a worrying episode in the ultra offensive against small towns, such as Saint-Brévin or Callac, which have become a laboratory for opposition to the “great replacement”.
“I have made this decision for personal reasons, especially due to the criminal fire committed against my home and the lack of state support“, assured Morez on Wednesday night in a message on Facebook in which he announced his resignation. The mayor, who is not a member of any party and had led the city council for six years, also indicated that he will leave the city to guarantee the safety of his family.At the end of March, he had suffered a major fire outside your house. Two of his vehicles were burned and the walls of his home also suffered damage.
The mayor of Saint-Brévin, Yannick Morez, resigns after ultra groups burned two of his vehicles
With just over 13,000 inhabitants and located about 50 kilometers west of Nantes, the seaside town of Saint-Brévin has been the scene of a spiral of right-wing anger and violence in recent months. Before the fire at his home, the mayor had already received numerous threats, even in your personal mailbox. There were also protests organized by ultranationalist and xenophobic groups. In the demonstration on April 30, a candidate in the last legislative elections from Zemmour’s party participated, who obtained 7% of the votes in the 2022 presidential elections. Unions and left-wing groups had responded with counter-demonstrations in support of the mayor.
xenophobic laboratory
The scourge of hatred and ultra resentment shook Saint-Brévin —a summer resort town located at the mouth of the Loire River— due to the presence of a reception center for asylum seekers (CADA, for its acronym in French). The State had inaugurated this structure in the fall of 2016, after the dismantling of the Calais Jungleone of the largest makeshift refugee camps in Europe.
Then, the creation of the center had provoked the rejection of Yannick Morez’s predecessor in the mayor’s office, the conservative Yannick Haury, currently a deputy for Macron’s party. A man even fired a firearm against the center’s façade, causing no casualties. Despite this hostility, some 400 people who requested asylum in France have been housed in the last six years in this summer residence of the EDF electricity company that has been converted into a humanitarian center. And these refugees and migrants “they never caused the slightest incident“, defended the mayor.
That did not stop the ultras from fiercely opposing the center. Their protests occurred, practically, in parallel with another very similar case in the Breton town of Callac. There the concentrations and xenophobic harassment forced the mayor to renounce in January the construction of a migrant reception center by a private foundation. Without any deputy in the National Assembly after its poor result in the legislative elections, Zemmour’s party has concentrated on actions of this type. And he has turned Saint-Brévin and Callac into laboratories for his fight against “great replacement“, a conspiracy theory that believes that the white French will be replaced by people with non-European origins.
Zemmour supporters organized protests against a refugee center in this town in western France
“I have felt abandoned”
Despite having been targeted by the ultras, the mayor of Saint-Brévin denounced having received no support from the State or the Macron government. He had no police protection staff. “I have felt abandoned. The State imposes CADA on local representatives, but then leaves the mayors to figure it out on their own,” he criticized in April in a report on the Envoyé Spécial program on the public channel French 2.
“J’ai prévenu la gendarmerie”
« Il s’est passé quoi ? »
” Laugh “
” Laugh ? »
” Laugh “#SaintBrevin #YannickMorez
pic.twitter.com/Cm2dGsoEL5— Paul Larrouturou (@PaulLarrouturou) May 11, 2023
“The attacks against Yannick Morez (…) and his family are unworthy“, Macron said on Twitter this Thursday at noon. Many Internet users reproached him for not having expressed this message of solidarity at the end of March, when the mayor suffered a fire at his home. “If he felt it (this feeling of abandonment), it is probable that, in part, it is true”, acknowledged the macronista deputy Sacha Houlié.
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“It is a shame on the part of the State that it did not know how to measure the threat that weighed on it and that it did not support it,” denounced the general secretary of the Socialist Party, Olivier Faure. “Immense responsibility of Darmanin (Minister of the Interior) and Dupond-Moretti (Minister of Justice) who refused to act and protect him,” said Thomas Portes, deputy for France Insoumisa (affiliated with Podemos). After the announcement of his resignation, the deputies applauded on Wednesday night to the mayor, with the exception of the representatives of the National Regrouping of Marine LePen who sat silent in their seats.
The resignation of this mayor takes place a few days after a demonstration on May 6 of some 500 far-right militants through the streets of the Latin Quarter in Paris. While in recent weeks the administration’s decrees have multiplied to prohibit casseroles and concentrations of trade unionists, this hooded protest was held without any impediment. More and more voices in France accuse Macron of being tougher on the left and the unions than on the far-right threat.