The town hall of Chalon-sur-Saône has decided to challenge a prefectural ban on the city's traditional funfair, by organizing the event despite the current restrictions.
The prefecture shortly after announced that it had seized the administrative court of Dijon.
Gilles Platret, mayor of Chalon-sur-Saône, in Saône-et-Loire, and LR leader for regional in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, authorized, on Monday, the holding of the traditional funfair in his city, defying a prefectural ban linked to the coronavirus.
"The City of Chalon has estimated that the sanitary conditions are now met and that is why, this Monday morning, Gilles Platret signed a decree authorizing the funfair from March 5 to 14", indicates the town hall in a press release.
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The prefecture announced shortly after that it had seized the administrative court of Dijon with a request for cancellation and suspension of the municipal decree.
"Intolerable situation"
"This decree appears to be in contradiction with the decree of October 29, 2020 prescribing measures to deal with the Covid-19 epidemic within the framework of the state of health emergency. Indeed, the decree expressly provides for the prohibition of fairgrounds (article 45) ", explains the prefecture in a press release.
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At the beginning of February, Gilles Platret had already threatened "not to stop there" when the prefecture of Saône-et-Loire had signified the ban on the traditional funfair "without any consultation", according to the elected official.
"I do not know when this shipwreck of the State will end. But it is an intolerable situation", he had reacted, assuring that, for him, the fun fair was "not canceled".
Territorialization of measures
According to the mayor, the decree signed Monday is based "on two complementary needs: that of fighting the epidemic crisis by appropriate measures that the showmen are quite willing to take, but also the need to fight against the heavy psychological crisis which is the consequence both of the epidemic crisis and of the measures restricting freedoms which have accompanied it ".
Gilles Platret believes moreover that "the state of the law and the jurisprudence, with the governmental will to territorialize the measures in force, opens in our eyes the possibility of allowing this fairground".
Known for his outspokenness and his mistrust of the current government, Gilles Platret had already authorized, at the end of October, the opening of non-food businesses in his city, thus defying their nationally decreed closure.
The municipal decree had been challenged by the courts.
Chalon prides itself on being the "only town in France" to have made fairgrounds "honorary citizens".