Mayor LR of Aix-en-Provence Maryse Joissains-Masini declared herself “ definitively a candidate ” for the municipal elections in March after having obtained the cassation of her one year ineligibility and six months suspended prison sentence on Wednesday .
" I am definitely a candidate in the municipal elections in Aix-en-Provence, " reacted Ms. Joissains Wednesday evening to AFP: " The magistrates of the Court of Cassation have shown great courage, they have given me back my honor, "she added, assuring that she would" sleep easy tonight . "
Mayor of Aix-en-Provence for almost 19 years, Ms. Joissains-Masini had been sentenced in May by the Montpellier Court of Appeal for embezzlement and illegal taking of interests. If the Court of Cassation quashed this judgment on Wednesday, it did so only " in its only provisions relating to penalties ", thus maintaining the guilty decision pronounced against the elected official.
The highest court of the judicial order referred Ms. Joissains to the Montpellier Court of Appeal, otherwise composed, for a new trial.
Read also: Aix-en-Provence: judged on appeal, the mayor LR claims to have "very well managed" his city
" During this new trial, I will have a lot of trump cards up my sleeve, and I hope for a total release of sentence, " continued Maryse Joissains to AFP, ensuring that in this case no one blamed her " no fictitious employment, no personal enrichment, no harm to the community ”
According to counsel for Ms. Joissains at the Court of Cassation, Me Patrice Spinosi, this new appeal trial should not be held for 6 to 8 months. " If a new ineligibility sentence were imposed, there would obviously be an appeal and that would send us back to at least two years, " he told AFP.
According to the Court of Cassation, the Court of Appeal of Montpellier had erred in law by pronouncing the penalty of ineligibility of the elected representative “ on the grounds that it was compulsory on the basis of article 131-26-2 of the penal code ". However, " on the date of the facts " alleged against Ms. Joissains, " this article did not exist and the additional penalty of ineligibility was only optional ".
After her conviction on appeal in May, the 77-year-old elected official immediately announced her cassation appeal. This appeal being suspensive, she had announced in June her intention to run for a fourth term as mayor, before officially launching her campaign in early January.
Maryse Joissains was condemned by the Montpellier Court of Appeal for the improper promotion of a driver, promotion canceled since by the Council of State and for the hiring in the community of communes of a collaborator in charge of animal protection , while this area did not fall within the competence of this community. " These were political appointments ," insisted Ms. Joissains Wednesday to AFP, saying that in the case of the hiring of his driver he was accused in fact " a crime of friendship ".
Read also: The mayor of Aix-en-Provence sentenced to 1 year suspended prison sentence and 10 years of ineligibility
Bastion of the right since 2001, with Ms. Joissains, Aix-en-Provence had previously been ruled for 12 years by a socialist mayor, Jean-François Picheral. Alain Joissains, the husband of Mrs. Joissains, had been mayor of the city from 1978 to 1983. Their daughter Sophie is assistant to the mayor of Aix and senator UDI of Bouches-du-Rhône.
Faced with Mrs. Joissains, the main candidates for the Aix-en-Provence town hall are Anne-Laurence Petel, the local LREM deputy, officially invested by the Walkers, the Modem deputy Mohamed Laqhila, and the deputy of Mrs. Petel in the National Assembly, Dominique Sassoon, under the banner of EELV. A union list from the left is led by university professor Marc Pena and the RN will be represented by Nathalie Chevillard.