The mayor of Niort, Jérôme Baloge, has just sent a letter to the prefect of Deux-Sèvres asking him to no longer validate the routes of the demonstrations that pass in front of the town hall. He suggests that he send the protesting processions through the Place du Donjon or through the prefecture.
It is a letter which has something to surprise. The mayor of Niort, Jérôme Baloge, has just written to the prefect of Deux-Sèvres to ask him not to let demonstrators pass in front of the town hall, or near the markets on market days. A letter, all that is more official, in which he first explains that, for several months, protest demonstrations have multiplied and that they come regularly “disrupt the peace of Niort residents and economic activity by making it difficult to move around the city center”.
Noting that the end of demonstrations are often held in front of the town hall and, fearing “an invasion of the town hall as was the case recently in several cities in France “, he asks the prefect to intervene.
I ask you to direct the organizers of events to other places such as the Place du Donjon or the prefecture.
“I ask you to kindly direct the organizers of demonstrations to other places such as the Place du Donjon or the prefecture for claims of a national nature for which the city of Niort has no negotiating power with the demonstrators”, writes Jérôme Baloge, the mayor of Niort, according to a verbatim published by our colleagues from Courrier de l’Ouest.
“Oil on the fire”
What to leap up the unions who see in this position of the mayor an attack on the freedom to demonstrate. This is what Jocelyne Baussant, the general secretary of the Force Ouvrière union for Deux-Sèvres, thinks. If she considers that Jérôme Baloge could have refrained from “pour oil on the flame” in this period of mobilizations, she denounces above all an infringement of the right to demonstrate.
It is a frontal attack on the right to demonstrate.
“It is a frontal attack on the right to demonstrate, it is a frontal attack of the right to demonstrate on trade union organizations”, said Jocelyne Baussant, Secretary General of the Workers’ Force 79.
Same reaction from the side of the CGT which hopes that the mayor will still let the demonstrators go where they want. Sandrine Fournier, spokesperson for the CGT in Deux-Sèvres notes that the mayor said nothing “when the farmers put slurry in town “. For her, this position is very surprising. “To prevent us from passing through the city center which belongs to everyone, I find that a little hard”, she confides.
The Niortais do not all support this position taken by the mayor. “A demonstration is made to interfere, if it does not interfere, we get nothing” explains a passer-by. Another goes further: “If the citizens of Niort can no longer express themselves in the heart of the city, there is a democratic problem”. For her part, a Niortaise is more understanding: “I think the local demonstrations should end in front of the town hall, for the others not”.
Solicited by our team in Niort, the mayor, Jérôme Baloge, very angry at the controversy did not wish to answer our questions, but admitted to having sent a letter to the prefect.
The Deux-Sèvres prefecture is committed to consulting event organizers to find solutions. A meeting is also scheduled for Thursday with the town hall to try to find common ground.
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