After his house was torched earlier this year by suspected far-right groups, the mayor of Saint-Brevin-les-Pins has announced he is resigning and leaving the town, Ouest-France reports.
The mayor had been targeted by extremists over the relocation of a reception centre for asylum-seekers,
"I took this decision for personal reasons, especially following the arson of my home and the lack of support from the state," Mayor Yannick Morez said in a statement on Wednesday evening.
While humanitarian associations warn that his resignation points to a rising climate of intolerance and radicalisation in France, the government is under attack for failing to support the mayor.
"We did not expect this resignation. It should be seen as a warning signal," Florian Guyot, president of the Aurore association which manages the reception centre told AFP on Thursday. "Our concern is more widespread than this local phenomenon, it is about our capacity, as a society, to accept projects of solidarity."
Saint Brevin-les-Pins, a seaside town in Western France, has hosted a reception centre for asylum seekers since 2016. In the past months, the government's plans to move the centre nearby an elementary school in the town stoked the anger of extreme-right groups.
Since early 2023, far-right demonstrations have been consistently taking place in the town. The mayor has been insulted and threatened, with no intervention from the government – who was behind the relocation project, TF1 reports.
Nous l’avions interrogé il y a un mois. Abandonné par l’Etat et les politiques, traqué par l’extrême droite, il vient d’annoncer sa démission et sa volonté de quitter la ville. Yannick Morez, un maire pour l’humanité, jette l’éponge
pic.twitter.com/1s1d6gLICr — Loopsider (@Loopsidernews) May 11, 2023
Tensions escalated until the mayor's house was intentionally set on fire on 22 March, at 05:00, while Morez and his wife were inside sleeping. The arson is still under investigation.
Since the fire, Yannick Morez sent multiple calls for aid from the state and expressed feeling "left alone on the frontlines" of the tensions stoked by the 400-person reception centre, AFP reports.
'Victim of far-right terrorism'
French politicians of all ideologies made statements in support of Mr Morez after his resignation and criticised the already unpopular government of President Macron.
On Wednesday evening in the National Assembly, Socialist deputy Jérôme Guedj paid tribute towards Morez as a "victim of far-right terrorism" in a speech. MPs got up in a standing ovation to Guedj's speech — all except members of the far-right, anti-immigration National Rally (RN), Ouest-France reports.
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Even so, Marine Le Pen, leader of the RN party and three-time presidential candidate, wrote on Twitter that "aggressions and intimidations" towards elected officials are "unacceptable," adding that she warned Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne about "the rise of extremist violence" and "no measure was taken." Le Pen is notorious for spreading far-right rhetoric in France, including references to white supremacist conspiracies like the "Great Replacement."
Les attaques contre Yannick Morez, maire de Saint-Brevin-les-Pins, et contre sa famille, sont indignes. À cet élu de la République, à son épouse et ses enfants, je redis ma solidarité et celle de la Nation.
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) May 11, 2023
In response to Morez's resignation, the French Prime Minister said that she finds the events "shocking" – also reassuring the mayor that he has "all of her support", AFP reports. Borne also invited Morez to her Paris office "in the course of the next week."
President Emmanuel Macron took to Twitter to express his solidarity with Yannick Morez and "the Nation".
Yannick Morez had lived in the Western French town for the past 32 years and was mayor for the past six. In the last election, he ran as an independent candidate, defeating his opponent from Renaissance, President Macron's centre-right party.
