Trappes Mayor Faces Death Threats Amid Islamism Debate, Calls for Protection Mount

"We refuse that the issue of working-class neighborhoods be reduced to a blind opposition between beatific naivety and anti-Muslim hatred," states in a press release the Génération.s movement founded by the former presidential candidate, Benoît Hamon. The movement has lent its support to the mayor, who "defends the values of the Republic on a daily basis, and fights those who attack him" and demands protection for him.

On Thursday on CNews, the mayor had described as "lies" the statements of Didier Lemaire, a philosophy teacher in a high school in the town of Yvelines. The latter had denounced "the progression of an increasingly strong community grip" on his students, as well as "the absence of a state strategy to defeat Islamism". Subsequently, the mayor said he had received death threats. He then filed a complaint.

On Friday, Valérie Pécresse called for the "dismissal" of the Génération.s mayor. According to her, the mayor would have distributed in a high school a tract "frontally attacking" Didier Lemaire. Benoît Hamon defends Ali Rabeh, who is also his former parliamentary assistant. "A mayor victim of massive and abject racism, threatened with death several times. Valérie Pécresse is not asking for his protection but for his dismissal. Ali Rabeh must be protected," he indignantly tweeted.

An elected official has also lent his support to the mayor of Trappes. "A local elected official, it is indeed he (EDITOR’S NOTE: Ali Rabeh) who is at the bedside of the Republic from morning to night. Caricaturing the problems that exist can only amplify them," tweeted the mayor of Grenoble Eric Piolle (EELV).