The pressure is growing on Caroline Cayeux. Since her appointment to the government on July 4, the Minister for Territorial Cohesion and Relations with Territorial Communities has faced numerous criticisms concerning declarations in 2013 “on marriage for all and adoption for couples of same sex, qualified as reform of whim and design which goes against nature”, judge its detractors. It is indeed more than a hundred personalities who denounce this Saturday evening in a forum published on the JDD site the words of the minister, who had engaged in an exercise of contrition this week in Le Parisien. Obviously not to the point of calming the storm, which is brewing within the government itself.
Entitled “To these people”, the forum highlights the first article of the Constitution, namely an indivisible, secular, democratic and social Republic, respecting all beliefs. “How to accept the remarks made by the Minister in charge of Territorial Communities on the eve of the national holiday? “, can we read.
“How to accept that a member of the executive, whose primary role is to ensure the application of the laws, can call ‘these people’ French citizens? How not to see that, in his mind, they do not belong to the same category of citizens? “, also denounces the text, whose signatories include the former Prime Minister Manuel Valls, the deputies of the majority Joël Giraud, David Valence, Raphaël Gérard, Quentin Bataillon or the first deputy mayor of Marseille Michèle Rubirola (EELV) .
“It’s certainly reprehensible, a judge should decide”
The neuropsychiatrist Boris Cyrulnik, the secretary general of the UNSA Laurent Escure, the entrepreneur Mathieu Gallet, the host Alex Goude, the doctor of sciences Aurélie Jean or the psychiatrist Serge Hefez also signed this platform. “The question is not whether this new minister has, in her entourage, friends among These peoplelike a mask on his prejudices, ”write the signatories.
“She deliberately chose to maintain homophobic remarks: it is certainly reprehensible. And only a judge should decide that,” they add. “On the other hand, the question is whether the government, in its duty of solidarity, validates the position of one of its members, and whether the majority subscribes to its attitude”, underline the participants.
“His words personally hurt many of us”
“It is a question of defending not this or that community, but the respect of the principle of equality and legality by a member of the government”, they insist. “His words hurt many of us personally, but above all they undermine our daily efforts to enforce republican principles in our territories”, underline the signatories of the platform.
On BFMTV this Saturday evening, one of the signatories of the platform, the vice-president of the Île-de-France region Patrick Karam demanded the departure of the minister: “We are calling for her departure, if she has a little honour, she must resign. “She is not sincere, she did it to keep her job,” he added regarding Caroline Cayeux’s apologies made Thursday evening in this interview with Le Parisien.
And Patrick Karam confirms the wish of many signatories to see the minister punished for what they consider to be comments that go against the law.