It is an explosion on the political scene, a flood of rumors and accusations, a blood crime, a tragedy.
On February 25, 1994, Var MP Yann Piat was assassinated by two killers on motorcycles on the way to her villa in Hyères.
Aged 44, the elected official was known for her feverish commitment against corruption which, in her eyes, was plaguing her region.
But this goddaughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen was also the one who slammed the door of the National Front to join the UDF.
It is almost 8 p.m. this Friday evening when Yann Piat leaves her office in Hyères to go to her villa in the residential area of Mont des Oiseaux where she lives with her daughters aged 16 and 20.
On the winding road, a motorcycle, headlights off, approaches the Clio driven by the MP's driver, Georges Arnaud known as Jo.
The passenger of the two-wheeler then fired several shots through the window of the vehicle, injuring the driver in the leg and peppering Yann Piat with projectiles.
The bikers flee and Jo Arnaud, despite his injury, manages to reach the fire station parking lot.
Unfortunately, it is too late for Yann Piat, fatally shot in the chest.
A “closed field of bloody clashes”
“Yann Piat murdered.”
The title, chilling in its sobriety, appeared on the front page of Le
Figaro
the next day.
“The conditions of execution are very reminiscent of a contract
,” declares the public prosecutor of Toulon while the investigation is already moving towards the local underworld.
Le Figaro
in its February 27 edition recalls the particular situation of the Var city:
“Hyères is a calm city but its port appendage, a real seaside resort in itself and forming a distinct agglomeration, has become the closed field of bloody clashes.
The clans have been fighting over control of the night bars and night clubs for ten years.
Assassinations and bombings are no longer counted.”
And to recall that Yann Piat, well placed to win the municipal elections, never stopped denouncing collusions between the
“
middle
”
and local political leaders.
The media machine will then go into overdrive.
The political avenue is explored at every turn.
The particular journey of Yann Piat raises questions.
Entering politics under the colors of the National Front, elected deputy in 1986, she then stood out, first by choosing to vote for the establishment of the RMI then by condemning the play on words
“
Durafour crematoire
”
by Jean-Marie Le Pen, very close friend of his mother, auxiliary of the armies during the Indochina War.
Excluded from the far-right party, she joined the UDF.
She settles scores with her former mentor in a book where she mocks her
“confinement in increasingly restrictive fixed ideas”
.
The “Yann d’Arc” of the Var
But the one nicknamed
“
Yann d’Arc
”
is especially focused on her battle to
“
clean” her city of corruption.
And it is this fight that seems to have lost her.
But who was she bothering to the point of wanting to eliminate her?
In the days following the murder, notables and mobsters were questioned, some taken into custody, notably Joseph Sercia, rival of Yann Piat for the town hall of Hyères.
The name of this vice-president of the General Council of Var is then on everyone's lips.
We learn that the MP kept files and files on investments deemed doubtful in the Var and multiplied letters denouncing local political figures.
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But two journalists go even further.
André Rougeot and Jean-Michel Verne published a book in 1997,
The Yann Piat Affair: Assassins at the Heart of Power,
which, under the pseudonyms Encornet and Trottinette, implicates François Léotard and Jean-Claude Gaudin and accuses them to be the sponsors of the murder.
The seriousness of the investigation was quickly called into question and the two men were heavily condemned for defamation in February 1998. Three months later, the trial began of those responsible for the assassination of the MP, who had since been identified by the courts. .
The Macama gang
Abandoned the political track.
The accused present in the box on May 5, 1998 are members of the local underworld.
“
Killer babies
”
,
young thugs under the control of a little Var godfather, Gérard Finale, owner of Macama, a bar located on the marina in Hyères.
The latter would have had two reasons to eliminate Yann Piat.
The merchant would have been worried to see
“
Yann d'Arc
”
presiding over the destiny of the city and thus preventing him from doing his business.
“On the other hand, Finale would have wanted to avenge the death of Jean-Louis Fargette, the godfather of the Var community, assassinated in Italy on March 17, 1993,
reports
Le Figaro
on the first day of the trial
.
At the time, rumors denounced Yann Piat as instigator of the murder.
The boss of Macama, who boasted of a long-standing friendship with the Toulon boss, would have convinced his “little ones” to take action.
Through this crime, he proclaimed himself “heir” to a Fargette empire, and promised his henchmen a comfortable future.”
The gang denounces the involvement of sponsors whose names they want to keep quiet, but the jurors evacuate the supposed gray areas and only retain the crime of thugs.
Gérard Finale is sentenced to life imprisonment just like the shooter, Lucien Ferri, 26 years old.
The driver of the motorcycle, Marco Di Caro, 25, received 20 years in prison.
“For “the biggest assassination in France”, according to the expression of one of the accused, the Var court wanted to deliver an exemplary judgment”
, analyzes
Le Figaro
the day after the verdict, recalling that after Jean Jaurès and the prince de Broglie, Yann Piat is the third French deputy assassinated in the territory.
“This is why it is a matter of state
,” explained the attorney general.
“At the material time, the “minots” of Loubières were not aware of what a deputy represented
,” notes
Le Figaro
.
“Yann Piat?
I didn’t even know if it was a woman or a man
,” Marco Di Caro admitted, disconcerting.