The Keeper of the Seals, Eric Dupond-Moretti, promised a circular "in the coming days, even in the coming hours" to reclassify the offense of insulting mayors in contempt.

The move comes as many mayors have been assaulted over the past six months.

The Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti, announced on Wednesday that insults against mayors would now be considered outrages, after an interministerial meeting in Matignon on violence against elected officials.

"We are going to suggest that the prosecutors retain this qualification, because the mayor who is insulted is a mayor who, within the meaning of criminal law, is an outraged mayor," said the Minister of Justice, who announced a circular " in the coming days, even in the coming hours "to respond to the attacks against elected officials.

Contrary to the insult "which is often the qualification retained" in these cases, that of contempt allows the implementation of TIG, work of general interest, recalled the minister.

"It's simple, it's pragmatic, it's efficient and it's going in the right direction", he assured, after a meeting in which the various associations of elected officials participated, in the presence of the Prime Minister Jean Castex, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, and the Minister of Cohesion of the Territories Jacqueline Gourault.

The slowness of justice singled out

The circular will contain "a number of measures which allow us to tell the mayors how much we are at their side," said Eric Dupond-Moretti, without giving more details on its content.

"This implies that justice gives a proportionate response, of course, systematic and immediate, of course," he added.

The associations of elected officials criticize the courts for their slowness in dealing with cases of assault.

During the meeting, the Prime Minister demanded more "fluidity" in the exchanges between the prefect, the public prosecutor and elected officials.

"To this end, the prefects will now have to systematically report to the prosecution the facts of which elected officials are victims and which are likely to receive a criminal qualification," said Matignon in a press release.

After a summer marked by various attacks against mayors, Eric Dupond-Moretti stressed that "each attack committed against a mayor is an attack against the Republic".

"These measures are not symbolic (...), they make it possible to resolve a certain number of difficulties", he insisted in the afternoon in Dijon before a meeting with mayors of the region.

In front of the journalists, however, he acknowledged that "there is also a problem of means" to be solved.

233 mayors attacked from January to July

According to figures from the Association of Mayors of France (AMF), 233 mayors were assaulted from January to July.

For the whole of 2019, they had been 383 to suffer blows or insults, against 361 in 2018. Its president, François Baroin, present at Matignon, refused to comment on the circular before being aware of it.

"We are waiting for it with great impatience," he said.

Several attacks hit the headlines this summer, including that of Francis D'Hulst, elected from the locality of Portbail in the Manche area hit by campers, or that of Philippe Becheau, mayor of Saint-Philippe d'Aiguille, in Gironde, after complaining of noise at night.

Last week, the mayor of Chalifert, in Seine-et-Marne, was attacked with punches by one of his constituents for a neighborhood dispute.