The home of Olivier Lepick, the mayor of Carnac, attacked after the destruction of menhirs in a commercial area of his town, is placed under the protection of the gendarmerie following threats and insults. He plans to file a complaint after the “tomb of hatred” which was unleashed against him.
“We’ll find you, we know your address, we’ll set you on fire…”: Olivier Lepick says he has received dozens of insulting and threatening messages on social networks, as have his wife and children, since the controversy surrounding the destruction of the menhirs broke out.
A surge of hatred since an amateur archaeologist from Carnac claimed on June 2 in a blog post that around forty small menhirs had recently been destroyed in a construction site of a DIY store. Since then, the Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs (Drac) of Brittany has declared that the archaeological interest of the menhirs, discovered during excavations in 2015 in two old fences covered with coppice, was not established.
According to Olivier Lepick, “damage was done last night” on the construction site, illustrating the violent turn that the controversy around the menhirs has taken.
“The sub-prefect, on his own initiative, decided to set up surveillance of my house and I admit that it reassured me“, says the mayor of Carnac. The gendarmerie carries out regular rounds around his home, as for the mayor of Saint-Brevin-les-Pins after the fire at his home, he explains. They are three gendarmes this Saturday afternoon.
Olivier Lepick also deplores a media frenzy with sensational titles and misleading photos.
People think that we made a DIY store in the alignments when it is a craft and commercial area which is 3 km away, in which there is already a gas station, the recycling center and a supermarket
The mayor acknowledges thatthere was an administrative error” but “this dumpling is not the fact of the municipality“who respected the legislation according to him. “This area should have been subject to an archaeological prescription, which was not the case, so everyone agreed to issue the building permit, including the DRAC“, he believes.
