In the North, this city that no one wants to protect since the riots

“In one night, three-quarters of municipal buildings were damaged.” The riots of June 2023, after the death of Nahel, killed by a police officer in Nanterre, cooled insurers in the town of Denain, in the North. The town's public buildings have no longer been insured since January 1, said mayor (PS) Anne-Lise Dufour-Tonini, confirming information from BFMTV. No insurer responded to the call for tenders launched by the town hall to insure its buildings from the start of 2024. And despite using a broker, none had yet come forward at the end of April.

Theater, media library, town hall: at the end of June, a number of public buildings in this town of 20,000 inhabitants near Valenciennes and marked by a high rate of poverty had been damaged during riots following the death of young Nahel, killed by a police officer in Nanterre . “Insurers have not spent much on Denain in recent years,” notes the mayor. But this single night of riots led the city to pay “around 750 euros of excess and the insurer [to pay] 600,000 euros of work”, she summarizes. The elected official says she is now very worried as soon as she hears a fire truck pass, hoping that a municipal building does not go up in flames.

After being received in Matignon a few days ago, alongside other concerned mayors such as that of Maubeuge, she said she was impatiently awaiting the conclusions of the government mission working on community insurance, led by the vice-president of the Association of Mayors of France Alain Chrétien (Horizons). A report from the Senate Law Committee made public at the beginning of April estimated the cost of damage linked to urban violence following Nahel's death at one billion euros.

For its part, the Senate Finance Committee drew up a worrying assessment at the end of March of the difficulties encountered by local authorities in obtaining insurance, pointing in particular to a price war between insurers which ended up harming the market.