For the second year in a row, Mayor Robert Ménard, former journalist for Reporters Without Borders, installed a nativity scene in the courtyard of the town hall of Béziers. The French government filed a complaint for its removal in the administrative court, claiming the installation violated the law of 1905 on the separation of Church and State.
The State filed and won such a complaint in December 2017.
Ménard commented, "The State has no other emergency than the crib of Béziers, like the 'yellow vests' protests, for example?"