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Anger and sadness during tributes to municipal employee killed in Grenoble
“He didn’t like injustice and it cost him his life”: the city of Grenoble and his colleagues, in shock, paid vibrant tributes on Monday to the municipal employee shot dead the day before by a hit-and-run driver, who is still wanted. Lilian Dejean, a 49-year-old cleaning agent, was on duty early Sunday morning on Boulevard Jean-Pain in the city center of Grenoble when, witnessing a traffic accident, he tried to stop the perpetrator from fleeing. Hit by two bullets in the chest, he died shortly after. “It was an unheard-of violence that befell our colleague,” said the Green mayor Eric Piolle during a tribute from the steps of the City Hall. “We can’t stand these firearms everywhere anymore,” he said, expressing his “sadness” and “anger.” The Alpine metropolis has experienced a summer marked by numerous shootings between drug traffickers. At least 17 episodes of gun violence have been recorded in the region since the beginning of the year and the authorities no longer hesitate to talk about “gang warfare.” “There is a social issue at stake, but today is not the time,” Eric Piolle added to the press. “Today is the time for solidarity, dignity and homage.” Gathered in the rain, several hundred people, including many elected officials with their blue-white-red scarves, colleagues and friends, observed a minute’s silence in memory of the father. “Every death at work is unacceptable, this one is even less so,” his colleague from the CGT Maxime Grand, the union he was involved with, told the crowd. – “Public service” – In the morning, several dozen of Lilian Dejean’s colleagues, exercising their right to withdraw, had already gathered in the town hall lobby where they posted photos and messages to him, such as: “We will miss you” or “The public service died with you.” “Disgusted, sickened. We are all affected by what happened. Our colleagues are traumatized and we think it’s not normal,” summarizes Virgile Comella, also a municipal employee in urban cleanliness. Lilian Dejean “had a good heart,” added Nadia and Farida, two employees of another municipal service. “He didn’t like injustice and it cost him his life.” For Xavier Rang, also a cleaning agent, Lilian certainly felt it was his duty to intervene “and didn’t play the cowboy or anything.” “We are part of the public service, if we see accidents we intervene to see if the person is injured or if there are oil leaks,” he stressed. The CGT also expressed in a press release its “astonishment” at the “brutality” of this murder and stressed that “this tragedy is part of an increasingly harmful climate for frontline workers who are confronted with violence in their daily lives, whether they are public sector agents or private sector employees.” “The gratuitous and blind violence, the fear of the stray bullet, of settling scores, all this must stop, in our country where firearms circulate far too freely,” added Amandine Demore, mayor of the town of Echirolles on the outskirts of Grenoble, where several deadly shootings have taken place in recent months. The shooter, whose identity remained unknown on Sunday evening according to prosecutor Eric Vaillant, remains “actively” sought by the police officers of the Local Judicial Police Service (SLPJ) of Grenoble. No information on the investigation was released on Monday. Another tribute, bringing together his relatives, is planned for Monday at the end of the afternoon at the scene of the tragedy.ahe-mla/chp/tes
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