Seaside Mayor Resigns After Threats Over Asylum Seeker Centre

“My resignation is a personal decision, especially after the arson attack at my house,” Saint-Brévin-les-Pins mayor Yannick Morez said in a statement. “My wife and my three children did not want me to remain mayor after what happened. We could have been dead,” he told the regional press.

The mayor, who is also a doctor in the city, has not only resigned but also packed his bags. He leaves Saint-Brévin-les-Pins with his family. “We are leaving after living here for 32 years.”

At the end of March, arson was set at the mayor’s house. Two cars completely burned out. Part of the house caught fire. Photos show the mayor standing by the carcasses of cars and a partially destroyed and largely blackened wall. The investigation into the fire is still ongoing, but it is certain for the mayor that the opponents of a new AZC are behind it. In recent months, the mayor has been threatened and insulted. There were also demonstrations in which supporters and opponents of the asylum seekers’ center came to blows and the police had to intervene with tear gas.

The mayor says he has not received any support from above. In April he called a minister about the arson. “Nothing has happened since then. I got no protection. I felt abandoned. It is as if the government imposes an AZC on you and then says: find out for yourself.” The local prefect partly contradicts that. “After the mayor reported threats, we had the police patrol his house more often.”

Saint-Brévin-les-Pins has been home to around 400 asylum seekers since 2016, without any significant problems. But recently the government decided to move the shelter to a new location, near a school. This led to a series of protests, which were called for, among others, by politician Éric Zemmour’s far-right party Reconquête. One of the Reconquête participants in the demonstrations also participated in protests against a new asylum seekers center in the town of Callac in Brittany a few months ago. That municipality then decided not to establish an AZC.

Many politicians have reacted with dismay to the ‘forced’ departure of the mayor of Saint-Brévin-les-Pins. Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne called it “very shocking.” “We will protect our representatives better,” she promised.

President Macron called the threats “appalling” and expressed his support for the mayor. The left-wing opposition in parliament said the mayor is “a victim of far-right terrorism.” Far-right Member of Parliament Marine Le Pen called violence against politicians “inadmissible”. “Political differences of opinion are resolved in the voting booth or in court.”