Villeneuve-de-Marc: a stabbed mayor due to unauthorized work

The man, suspected of having violently assaulted on the stabbing weapon on Wednesday the mayor of his village in Villeneuve-de-Marc (Isère), was arrested on Friday in a near locality. An assault that had aroused the indignation of many elected officials to President Emmanuel Macron. The arrest of the suspect was announced on X by the Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, for whom “the violence against our elected officials are intolerable and will never remain unpunished”. The man, residing in “longtime” in Villeneuve-de-Marc, had fled after bringing several shots to the 63-year-old mayor, Gilles Dussault, two of which in the thorax, with a “stabbing weapon”, then tried to overthrow him with his car, according to the Vienna prosecutor’s office, which conducted the flagrance investigation.

Wanted for attempting to murder on a person depositary of the public authority, the suspect, 59, “was not armed” and “did not oppose any resistance” during his arrest on the public highway at 11:30 am in Charantonnay (Isère), 14 km from the scene of the aggression, then was placed in police custody, said in a press release the prosecutor of Grenoble Etienne Manteaux.

Gilles Dussault, mayor since 2014 of Villeneuve-de-Marc, a village of less than 1,200 inhabitants between Lyon and Grenoble, had been hospitalized in absolute emergency in Lyon, his vital prognosis being initially initiated. Suffering from “three wounds including two in the thorax and a defensive wound”, the councilor has since been heard by the investigators and confirmed the course of the facts reported by the first witnesses, the Vienna prosecutor’s office said on Friday. His injuries earned him a total incapacity for work (ITT) of a fortnight, according to the same source.

According to the first elements of the investigation, the mayor and his attacker were in dispute for “urban planning questions” and “works carried out by” the citizen “without authorization”. After having presented several shots to the elected official, the attacker first left the scene before returning with his vehicle. “He then tried to hit the mayor and his son who came to help him, and finished his race against a wall, then fled on foot” after having punched the mayor who tried to intercept him, according to the Vienna prosecutor’s office.

Judicial information was opened by the criminal center of the Grenoble court, now responsible for the case. An investigation into “aggravated violence” against the mayor’s son, who had been more slightly injured and hospitalized in Vienna, was also opened.