The mayor of Saint-Étienne Gaël Perdriau filed a complaint Wednesday the day after the invasion of the city hall in full city council by a hundred protesters loudly demanding his resignation on the background of accusations of blackmail to the sex tape, we learned from the town hall. On Tuesday evening, May 30, demonstrators chanting "Perdriau resign!" and some banging on pots and pans briefly burst into the municipal council chamber before being pushed back by the municipal police, who had to use tear gas.
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This kind of violence is unacceptable. Two municipal officers were injured. The hall of the city hall has been strongly degraded, "responded Wednesday the mayor of Saint-Etienne in an interview with France Bleu Saint-Etienne. "What happened last night is extremely serious because this violence was provoked by elected officials," said the mayor (ex-LR) adding that "the deputy of the deputy Andrée Taurinya (Editor's note: LFI deputy of the 2nd constituency of the Loire) was among the people who returned by force".
'Defeated Committee'
Gaël Perdriau filed a complaint against X for "degradation of public property", "insult against the Mayor and municipal police" and "light violence", according to a copy of the complaint obtained by AFP. At the beginning of the city council, the main opponents of the mayor - indicted for "blackmail" by intimate video on his former centrist deputy to control him politically - had again tried in vain to convince him to resign, to step down or to organize a local referendum on the continuation of his mandate.
The person concerned replied to be "fully focused on (his) mandate", and "impatient for justice to speak", while, as at every municipal council since last September, a collective gathered under the banner of the "Defeated Committee" organized animations on the forecourt of the town hall.
"Proof of innocence"
The day after his indictment, on April 6, the first magistrate of Saint-Etienne had said that he would bring "the proof of (s)on innocence". If he remains anchored to his seat as mayor, Gaël Perdriau has "withdrawn" from his functions at the head of the metropolis. Last Thursday, the metropolitan council took note of it and voted by 69% a deliberation halving his allowance as president of Saint-Étienne Métropole.
In addition to the fifty-year-old elected official, his former chief of staff Pierre Gauttieri, his former deputy Samy Kéfi-Jérôme and the latter's ex-companion, Gilles Rossary-Lenglet, who had confessed to a "barbouzage of morals" to Mediapart, at the end of August 2022, have also been indicted.