He said it verbally, walking in the footsteps of the Prime Minister on July 10 in Clichy-sous-Bois (Seine-Saint-Denis), with a courteous smile, but a little bored: “I am someone from very discreet… ”He repeated it by email shortly after. No, the prefect Georges-François Leclerc would not grant an interview to the Parisian before his departure from Bobigny. The 54-year-old senior civil servant hardly practices the press, especially when it is she who takes the first step.
This singular character leaves under the praise of the elected officials of the left of 93, when he had landed at home in 2019 preceded by a reputation of right-wing prefect and strong. This close to Jean Castex, former deputy director of cabinet of Claude Guéant in the Interior, is propelled to a position in sight: prefect of the Hauts-de-France region. He takes office on July 19.
His passage in Seine-Saint-Denis “will leave traces”, say local elected officials. The same coughed sometimes in the spring of 2019 by welcoming this “well-born techno”, from a Burgundian aristocratic family, refusing the decorations – with the exception of his military alpine patent medal. A very Third Republic look, pale and severe face under his black hair, round glasses. The man, previously stationed in the Alpes-Maritimes, had distinguished himself by his contested management of the influx of migrants at the Franco-Italian border. He is also targeted by the complaint of Geneviève Legay, a septuagenarian activist injured during a police charge against a demonstration of yellow vests in April 2019, for which the investigation is still ongoing.
Eric Coquerel (LFI): “I saw him arrive with fear, I see him leave with regret”
“I saw him arrive with fear, admits the deputy of La France Insoumise, Eric Coquerel. I see him leaving with regret. While defending government policy, he is a frank person who tries to find solutions. “Stéphane Troussel, president of the departmental council PS, is grateful to him for having” become one with the Seine-Saint-Denis “, by seizing emblematic files. “On the Olympics, the renationalization of the RSA, he wet the shirt! “” I have rarely seen a prefect so comfortable saying: I am on the right, but above all I serve the state », Slips PCF deputy Stéphane Peu.
However, Georges-François Leclerc arrived at the appropriate moment, when the State planchaait on the last arbitrations around the “emergency plan” for Seine-Saint-Denis. Plan unveiled in the fall of 2019, supposed to address the failures of the State in this area, highlighted by the Cornut-Gentille parliamentary report in 2018. “We had disagreements, but he put a lot of energy into ensuring that the state changes gear ”, notes the deputy LFI Clémentine Autain. “He went there loud and clear on the means for justice,” said the prosecutor of Bobigny, Fabienne Klein-Donati.
“He was touched by the living conditions of the people”
The Covid turmoil then swept through this sensitive and poor department. In April 2020, in full confinement, Le Canard enchaîné revealed the email sent by Georges-François Leclerc to the regional prefect, evoking the risk of “hunger riots”: “We count between 15,000 and 20,000 people who, between slums, emergency accommodation and hostels for migrant workers will find it difficult to feed themselves ”. “It was important that the representative of the State thus alert”, estimates Stéphane Troussel. Olivier Klein, mayor (various left) of Clichy-sous-Bois, remembers seeing him moved, during his first visit to the dilapidated district of Chêne-Pointu: “He was touched by the living conditions of the people. “
“This department has changed me”, declared Georges-François Leclerc on July 12, during his departure party, during which he received, as a gift, a print from the photographer Manolo Mylonas. The cliché of a horse perched on the roof, strewn with rubbish, of a tower of Montreuil. Symbol of a battered territory full of combative vitality. In Bobigny, the senior official had enrolled his two youngest children in public school.
Radically anti-migrants?
In the prefectural, some evoke a man “soup au lait, which sometimes becomes odious”, others “a great emotional”. “Simply demanding when the interest of the State is at stake, capable of defending his troops,” says the commander of a CRS company who knew him in the provinces and found him in the Paris region. Even if it means going to the administrative tribunal, to defend in person its decisions when they were challenged.
“He likes the setting in scene, estimates Bruno Beschizza, LR mayor of Aulnay-sous-Bois. He’s calling to yell at you, but he’s doing his job of servicing the government. “Azzedine Taïbi, PCF mayor of Stains, remembers” violent exchanges by SMS “about a fresco inaugurated in 2020 against police violence and racism:” Ideologically, we are not on the same planet, but we did work well together. “
Not everyone says the same. The Human Rights League tackles “a radically anti-migrant prefect who has cut off all dialogue with associations”. The eventful evacuation of the exile camp of Saint-Denis in November resulted in him being the target of a complaint for “complicity in willful violence”, like the prefect of the region and the prefect of police of Paris. “He was the armed wing of an organized non-reception policy,” said Yann Manzi, of the Utopia 56 association, one of the complainants.
Francis Dubrac, boss in the construction industry, says he was “traumatized by a prefect who does not respect the law”, and who had blocked work permits for young foreign apprentices for a time. Activists and elected officials finally reproach him for not having tackled the dysfunctions of the service issuing residence permits to foreigners, already congested before his arrival, despite repeated injunctions from the administrative court, ordering the State services to make appointments to applicants. The file therefore awaits his successor, the former prefect of Hérault Jacques Witkowski.
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