Mayors and elected officials from Loire-Atlantique participated in a training course supervised by negotiators from the gendarmerie, February 10, 2021 -

J. Urbach / 20 Minutes

  • Two negotiators from the gendarmerie led a training course for local elected officials this Wednesday morning in Nantes.

  • "They are faced with an increase in violence, with many inhabitants who no longer hesitate to go into contact," said one of them.

"You'll see, I'll find you and blow your mind.

“These words, Norbert Samama heard them this summer, when he intervened to ask individuals to calm down, and to wear their masks during a small concert in his town.

And according to the mayor of Pouliguen, member of the Observatory of violence against elected officials, this is not an isolated act.

While 233 mayors would have suffered attacks in France between January and July 2020, the gendarmerie and the association of mayors of France have decided to act.

This Wednesday morning, around thirty elected volunteers from Loire-Atlantique participated, at the Nantes gendarmerie barracks, in a training session supervised by two negotiators.

“They are faced with an increase in violence, with many inhabitants who no longer hesitate to go into contact, assures Anthony, regional negotiator.

The objective is to give them keys, a kind of first aid box, to succeed in appeasing situations in the event of verbal aggression.

In a negotiation, there are three essential behaviors to adopt: empathy, listening and questioning.

You have to put yourself in the other's shoes to move forward.

"

"Break with isolation"

Thierry Deville, deputy mayor of Saint-Brévin for security, made the trip to Nantes.

The chosen one says he is sometimes confronted with citizens who do not hesitate to share their discontent with him, sometimes in the middle of the street and in a brutal way.

"I am called upon on problems of noise pollution, neighborhood conflicts," he observes.

Without going into aggression, associations also have a lot of expectations, but we do not have a magic wand.

I have also come here to learn how to better listen and deal with these complaints.

"

During a session of "practical cases", the mayor of Sautron had to face a horde of (false) parents unhappy with the canteen, "from the experience", according to her.

Rather than explaining hot, Marie-Cécile Gessant got away by offering a meeting in town hall.

"It's a good idea to find one or two privileged interlocutors and to offer to see each other quickly, with a rested head," approves the negotiator.

It systematically lowers the pressure.

"

This training, the first in the department and the second in France, should be repeated in Nantes and in the rest of the region.

“So far, the mayors manage to manage but they are nonetheless affected thereafter, observes Norbert Samama.

When you receive threats face to face or on social networks, which sometimes affect your family, there can be a form of helplessness and helplessness.

We must above all break with this isolation because it is democracy, of which the mayors are a real cog, which is at stake. ”Following the threats he received, the mayor of Pouliguen lodged a complaint.

The case will be tried next year.

Politics

Insults against mayors now considered outrages, Dupond-Moretti announces

Society

Faced with the attacks they suffer, elected officials can no longer take the slowness of justice

  • Violence

  • Aggression

  • Gendarmerie

  • Mayor

  • Nantes

  • Society