Var: the mayor of the Republic of Lithuania wants to force associations to participate in patriotic demonstrations, the prefecture opposes

Is it a condition for the payment of subsidies to associations that they participate in patriotic demonstrations? This is what the mayor of Saint-Raphael (Var) LR Frederic Masquelier wants to do, but the prefecture asks him to refuse it.

On Sept. 22, the city councilor voted for the caucus, which consisted of associations, “mandatory participation” in four of the five patriotic ceremonies “as a condition of public assistance,” he explained on Friday. “It’s normal when you get public money, you have homework,” continued the elected official, who presented the new measure on Nov. 10 to 405 associations in his city. “And no one objected to this device,” he said.

The five ceremonies are: May 8, commemorating the 1945 victory; 15 August, anniversary of the Allied landings in Provence in 1944; November 11 for the armistice of 1918; July 14, national holiday; and 29 April, National Day of Remembrance for the Victims and Heroes of the Deportation.

The mayor persists

In opposition to this measure, one of the two elected opposition members of the commune, Pierre Tomasi, a supporter of the EELV, seized control of the legitimacy of the Prefecture of Var. “You can only ask the association to do what is provided for by its charter,” he said. In response, the sub-prefect of Draguignan made a “kind appeal” to the mayor of Saint-Raphael asking him to “cancel this discussion,” he says in a letter dated October 24.

“I will not withdraw it,” the mayor said on Friday, specifying that “it will be discussed with the prefecture.” If the community does not “give a positive answer within two months” to this request, the prefect may apply to the administrative court, as indicated by the prefecture.

For Cercle Boulouris, one of the city’s main retirees-oriented associations, “this measure presents a problem not so much in substance as in form,” said its president, Bernard Dimon. “It’s okay to participate in certain patriotic ceremonies, even if we’ve never been officially invited until now. What shocks us is what we tell associations if you don’t come, your grant will be reduced “, he added.