The Montpellier Administrative Court ordered, Wednesday, in the municipality led by Louis Aliot to remove the crèche from his town hall, under penalty of a penalty of “100 euros per day of delay”.
MO12345LEMONDE With AFP
A week after that of Béziers, the town hall of Perpignan is in turn summoned to remove “within twenty-four hours” the crèche installed in its town hall. Again seized by the Human Rights League (LDH) in summary proceedings, an emergency procedure, the administrative court of Montpellier ordered, Wednesday December 21, to the commune led by Louis Aliot (National Rally, RN) of “Remove the nursery from the Nativity, or Pessebre [in Catalan]”, under penalty of a penalty of “100 euros per day of delay”, according to a decision made less than twenty-four hours after hearing the parties.
“It is a crèche with Joseph, Marie, the Magi Kings who show that we are well in a Catholic crèche, contrary to the law of 1905” of separation of the Churches and the State, had pleaded Sophie Mazas, Lawyer and president of the Hérault LDH, Tuesday.
“We are truly in tradition”, had retorted the city lawyer Delphine Joubes, pointing out that the crèche had been erected in a “patio (…) [consecrated] to Catalanity” and by Which “people who wish to come to the town hall for administrative procedures do not go”. The conclusions of the town hall “are rejected,” said the administrative court, whose precise motivation will be known later.
“Instrumentalization of religion”
m. Aliot, figure of the RN, and the mayor of Béziers, Robert Ménard, close to the far-right party, “think they can violate the law and the constitution impunity”, reacted to the agency France-Presse M me Mazas, judging “problematic” that the prefects of Hérault and the Pyrénées-Orientales did not “react” to “enforce the law”. The LDH official also denounces “the instrumentalization of religion by the extreme right for political ends”. “The strength of secularism is the freedom of everyone to live their belief personally and in places of worship provided for this purpose: the crèche at the church, the civil status and the management of the city at the town hall “She added.
The mayor of Perpignan immediately replied: “Unfortunately, the League for Human Rights and several political organizations have decided to instrumentalize the secularism of the Republic and administrative justice to hinder the expression of our Traditions, of our inheritances and more generally to prevent us from being what we are, “wrote Mr. Aliot in a press release.
The unhappy candidate for the presidency of the RN denounces a “decision in total lag with the popular craze and the wonder aroused by the Pessebre”, admired according to him by “thousands of people” since November 25. Pending the official notification, “the City reaffirms its attachment to all the elements of our Catalan culture and of which the Pessebre is part”.
The crèches of Beaucaire (Gard) and Béziers are regularly continued in court, but continue to be installed each year by the mayors concerned. On November 16, the Council of State had confirmed the ban on the Christmas crèche of the town hall of Beaucaire, directed by the far right mayor Julien Sanchez.