The mayor of Saint-Etienne Gaël Perdriau was heard on Tuesday, September 13 in Lyon as part of a judicial inquiry opened after accusations of political sextape blackmail targeting the elected LR and his close guard.
Gaël Perdriau is "
heard at his request
" with the members of his cabinet, "
so that the truth comes out
" in the face of these accusations, his first deputy, Jean-Pierre Bergé, announced to the press.
According to information from Le
Progrès
, four other people suspected of being involved in the case were also taken into custody.
They would have been summoned this morning to the premises of the judicial police in Lyon.
Contacted by
Le Figaro
, the prosecution has so far not responded to our requests.
"Invasion of privacy"
The mayor told his first deputy that he approached these hearings "
with serenity
", but very quickly, in the middle of the morning, his political family announced in a press release that he had launched
"an exclusion procedure"
against him.
At the beginning of September, the Lyon public prosecutor's office opened a judicial investigation into this case concerning the filming and use of a sexual video recorded in 2014 in which Gilles Artigues, former first municipal deputy and former deputy known for his Catholic commitment. , was being massaged by a man in a hotel room in Paris.
This investigation for "invasion of privacy, aggravated blackmail, embezzlement of public property by a person in charge of a public function, breach of trust and concealment of these offenses" was launched after a complaint from Gilles Artigues aimed at namely the mayor, one of his deputies and the former companion of the latter.
Read alsoComplaint for sextape blackmail against the mayor LR of Saint-Etienne
The Mediapart news site, which had revealed the affair by publishing detailed confessions of this ex-companion, Gilles Rossary-Lenglet, on a "
daub of morals
" in Saint-Etienne, posted new damning recordings online on Monday. for the elected 50-year-old and his chief of staff Pierre Gauttieri.
Gilles Rossary-Lenglet claims to have been paid for this video made, according to him, at the request of the mayor and his close guard, thanks to fictitious services invoiced to two associations subsidized by the town hall.
"
The price I gave was 50,000 euros (...), it may seem huge, but (not so much) if you put in the balance that you hold your first deputy, that you hold your municipality with your eyes closed for a whole term
,” he said in a video interview with Mediapart.
"Lessons Giver"
After the new revelations from the news site on Monday, the four LR parliamentarians from the Loire and twelve elected officials from the left-wing municipal opposition asked the mayor and president of the Metropolis to step back.
On Twitter, the boss of the LR senators Bruno Retailleau denounced "
intolerable mafia actions
" and thanked
"the management of the Republicans for having excluded Gaël Perdriau"
, while the candidate for the presidency of LR, Éric Ciotti - whose line of firmness is strongly criticized by the elected official -, castigated a "
giver of lessons
" showing according to him "
the terrifying face of the worst abjection
".
The press release from LR specifies that his exclusion will “
soon
” be validated by the political bureau of the party.
"
If it is now up to the courts, in view of the latest revelations on Monday, to decide on the guilt and the degree of involvement of Mr. Perdriau, the Republicans can only condemn the despicable methods used by the mayor of Saint-Etienne against a political rival
”, according to the text.
According to the declarations of a municipal elected official to AFP - and according to
Le Progrès
which does not cite its sources - the mayor would be heard under police custody at the same time as his chief of staff Pierre Gautierri, a municipal deputy sitting in the Region, Samy Kéfi-Jérôme, his ex-companion Gilles Rossary-Lenglet as well as the deputy director of cabinet Claire Vocason.
The Lyon prosecutor's office was not immediately available to confirm this information.
Municipal councilor in Saint-Etienne in the UDF-Rad team from 1995 to 2008, Gaël Perdriau then sat in the opposition during the mandate of Maurice Vincent (PS), before being elected mayor in 2014 then re-elected in 2020, while presiding over the city of Saint-Etienne.
After having taken a position on numerous occasions against "
the ultra-liberal policy of Emmanuel Macron
" at the start of his first term, the elected official then fell out with the leadership of his party after criticizing the right-wing of candidate LR for the presidential Valérie Pécresse and her rapprochement with Éric Ciotti.
These criticisms have earned him to be removed from the vice-presidency of the Republicans.