Less than two years after his arrival, Para prefect Patrice Latron leaves Touraine and flies to overseas skies. He will be replaced in the coming days by Thomas Campeaux, a man with a more classic profile and a much more social coloring, to the great relief of institutional, political and solidarity solidarity actors.
By Joséphine.
We remember the highly publicized scandal of the dismissal of the Prefect of Indre-et-Loire Marie Lajus at the end of 2022, following tensions between this representative of the State, keen on ecological and social issues, and elected officials from the right Touraine conservative as well as actors from the economic world. The Minister of the Interior at the time, Gérald Darmanin, then deemed it useful to calm the mini-revolt of the notables by sending a paratrooper officer, then stationed at the Ministry of Veterans Affairs, to take control of the prefecture of Tours.
A prefect airborne to Reunion
After 23 months of a vigorous approach and communication, ranging from the ban on rave parties to the closure of kebabs with questionable hygiene, including seizures of crates of merguez at Sanitas, cuddle therapy with the FNSEA, drone balls at the slightest demonstration, various bottles of red in the Rabelaisian brotherhoods, seizures of bi-turbo urban rodeo quads and assumed bureaucratic coldness on the subjects of homelessness and reception of refugees, Patrice Latron therefore leaves Touraine for Reunion Island. Because the government is watching overseas like milk on fire, in this period of extreme tension in New Caledonia/Kanaky and demonstrations against the high cost of living in the Antilles.
Moreover, rumors had been circulating in the prefecture for months about Patrice Latron who seemed to have little taste for the false sweetness of Touraine, seeking to leave at the first opportunity, despite the fraternal welcome from a number of elected officials from the local right. , happy to have had the head of Madame Lajus. The latter, who has since become a member of the team of the NFP candidate in Matignon, Lucie Castets, and whose son heads a high school union anchored to the left, thus confirmed a posteriori her political orientation which so frightened our bourgeoisie between 2020 and 2022.
A more left-friendly jurist arrives
The replacement prefect, Thomas Campeaux from Versailles, almost 50 years old, presents a more classic and rather brilliant career. Holder of a Master's degree in public law, passed by Sciences Po Paris then by the ENA from which he graduated well, he joined the prestigious Council of State in 2002. He was then sent to the prefectures of the Meuse (2006) then of Reunion (2008) where he worked alongside the influential prefect Michel Lalande, close to the PS, who would soon allow him to return to Paris in the big leagues. With the arrival of François Hollande to power in 2012, Campeaux was appointed deputy director at the Ministry of the Civil Service before finding Michel Lalande, of whom he became the right-hand man in the cabinet of Bernard Cazeneuve at the Ministry of the Interior in 2015, confirming a left-friendly profile, but social and good in all respects. Thomas Campeaux was then in 2016 director of public liberties and legal affairs, still at the Ministry of the Interior, a position which allowed him to work on political radicalization, in particular of small far-right groups, which could serve him to understand their weight and influence in Touraine, far from being negligible. After a return to the Council of State in 2017 with the arrival of Emmanuel Macron and his teams in the central administration, Thomas Campeaux was sent to Aisne as Prefect in 2021, a position which he is leaving to come in Tours in the coming days.
The Campeaux style also seems to contrast with the somewhat khaki style of Latron: more peaceful and less offensive communication, a taste displayed for public services, environmental issues and prevention policies rather than for security and repression, less regal. and Jacobin than his predecessor, more public manager and interlocutor of local authorities than lieutenant-colonel under the orders of the Parisian general staff.
We understand that those involved in social issues, housing, solidarity, the fight against discrimination and ecology are a priori reassured by this appointment and relieved to close the Latron parenthesis. But it remains to be seen how Mr. Campeaux will acclimatize in this strange Touraine, in a context of budgetary austerity and social and political tensions which will significantly reduce the room for maneuver and consultation of the highest representative of the State in the department.
More information otherwise on Magcentre:
The XXL interview with the prefect of Indre-et-Loire, Patrice Latron
