2023-07-13 08:00:03
Marine Le Pen, traveling to Beauvais, July 12, 2023. CYRIL BITTON / DIVERGENCE FOR “THE WORLD”
Patrick Belluau had already seen Marine Le Pen: he had met her at the cinema, in a room in Boulogne-Billancourt, in the Hauts-de-Seine. In recent days, emissaries from the National Rally (RN) have come to inquire about the possibility, for the leader of the far-right formation, to visit him in his chocolate factory, in the central square of Beauvais. “My door is open to everyone”he replied, but he did not expect to “such a horde” : two RN deputies from Oise, local activists, the security service, the press and a few onlookers followed, on Wednesday July 12, for ninety minutes, the visit of Mrs. Le Pen to traders casted at the ‘advance.
During this trip, the discussions remained closed to the press. Mr. Belluau expected, like the journalists present, questions about the urban riots and insecurity: “I know she plays on it. » This was not the case, and for good reason: if Beauvais was indeed affected by the violence following the death of Nahel M., victim of police shooting, on June 27, it remained largely confined to the district of l ‘Argentina.
In this priority area, the rioters damaged the municipal center for social action, a post office and shops in the area. The beautiful shop windows of the city center, a quarter of an hour on foot, are intact. Why did Marine Le Pen, who remained discreet during the riots, avoiding outbidding, prefer to stay away from the neighborhood for her first trip since the urban violence? For fear of the hostility of the inhabitants, she assumes: “Clearly, these neighborhoods are impossible to secure, pretty much for everyone. »
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The leader of the far right preferred to talk to traders about inflation, learning, business failures, repayment of state-guaranteed loans or employer contributions. She thus told them of her opposition to employer contributions, to state-guaranteed loans linked to confinements – to which she would have preferred equity –, to pedestrian streets which have the disadvantage, she says, of attracting marginalized people who it would be necessary to hospitalize, which implies “massively restore resources in psychiatry”. A speech likely to cure its popularity with small traders, less with supporters of a relative budgetary orthodoxy.
“Looter pays”
With them, she did not address the subject of the riots, which carry her in the polls, until a visit to a police station, which took everyone by surprise, and even her own entourage. She quickly raised the subject in front of the press, pleading in favor of a “looter-pays, breaker-pays theory”which would lead the rioters to “to pay, all their life perhaps, certainly even”for the damage done. “We pour billions into city politics with in reality zero results”, she still considered. Before saying ” interlocked “ by the cancellation of the July 14 festivities in several municipalities, for fear of new violence after the riots following the death of Nahel M..
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