Another subject for debate during the municipal council of Beauvais Tuesday evening, November 26: the vote of a wish to ask a deposit for couples who get married in the city prefecture. This deposit, which should be between €500 and €1,000, is supposed to prevent dangerous behavior during wedding processions. It could have been the subject of a decree but Mayor Franck Pia decided to submit it to the council for a vote, in the form of a wish. This was seen on the left as a political provocation.
To defend their wish, the majority emphasizes the risks and recent excesses observed in wedding processions in Beauvais. According to the mayor, the charter currently in force, and which all the bride and groom sign, is no longer sufficient to guarantee compliance with the highway code by the procession. And “video protection can't do everything». «We can honk our horn, show our joy», Still defends Franck Pia.
“I didn’t want to appear too authoritarian,” says the mayor of Beauvais
It was Mohrad Laghrari who spoke first for the opposition. “We condemn dangerous acts and behaviors“, he clarified. Before asking the mayor why he had chosen to make it a wish. “Why not just take a municipal decree? You know how to do it when you need to. You did it with the Foëx school», recalls the advisor.
Mohrad Laghrari adds that in the charter that the bride and groom sign, the municipality can take legal action in the event of a disturbance to public order. And this problem of overflowing wedding processions goes back years. For him, it is a vote for electoral purposes. “It's a shift for me, to want to flatter the ideologies that are hidden behind this wish“, he said, referring to the far right. He warns the mayor: “you are feeding a beast that you will not control».
Franck Pia defended himself. “This charter does not workinsists the councilor. It provides for provisions which do not allow us to sanction the authors because we cannot recognize them. We need to raise our voice.» He does not, however, say how, if the perpetrators cannot be confused, the bride and groom's deposit can be used. As for the wish rather than the decree: “I didn’t want to seem too authoritarian.», he explained.
A deposit that changes nothing for weddings and their processions?
But this explanation did not convince Gregory Narzis (PRG). “There needs to be a decree. The municipal council cannot, it is illegal, ask the bride and groom to post a deposit in the signed charter unless you have issued an order within the framework of your police powers“, he assured. However, many municipalities in France have today voted to establish a deposit for married couples. The difference is that, according to the local press, these deposits are to prevent delays or damage to the town hall. None appear to sanction wedding processions.
In an article The Dispatch from Évreux even calls into question the legal validity of such a measure. According to the lawyer interviewed, even if the bride and groom refuse to post a bond, the city would not have the power to refuse to marry them. At least not for this reason. In this vagueness, it is difficult to ensure that the deposit prevents excesses in future wedding processions.
Create a workgroup that already exists
Grégory Narzis then returned to a proposal from Leïla Dagdad to create a transpartisan working group on urban rodeos. “Why wasn't this done? We ask you to create this transpartisan working group“, he pleads. Issue : “This transpartisan group is already created and came together once», replies Sandra Plomion, assistant in charge of security.
Which is immediately confirmed by Leïla Dagdad. Who adds: “I am disappointed because there were only 4 or 5 of us. There are 45 of us in this assembly and I think we could take a little more interest in this problem.» She also said to herself “surprised by this wish because it is something that was mentioned during the working group and I thought that it would be the fruit of the work of this group.» But no, this Tuesday evening it was clearly presented as the fruit of the mayor's work. Grégory Narzis assured that he never received the email inviting him to work on urban rodeos and that he would have gladly participated.
The discussion then shifted to the supposed political politics of each party. In order to gain votes for the municipal elections of 2026. Ultimately the wish was adopted. The two left-wing groups that spoke out against it did not take part in the vote.
