She speaks after her arraignment on Friday.
Mélanie Boulanger, PS mayor of Canteleu (Seine-Maritime), explained on Monday that she "had the worst time of her life" after being taken into police custody in connection with a narcotics case.
Nineteen people, including four in Seine-Saint-Denis, were arrested on Friday. One million euros in assets, 375,000 euros in cash and vehicles were seized during searches. 15 kg of heroin, 25 kg of cutting product and firearms were also found. The lawyer for a deputy mayor said that "when you are part of a municipal team, you come into contact with a lot of citizens and, among them, there may be some who are less honest than others. It is these contacts which were able to put the chip in the ear of the investigators (…) The police officers, through their questions, wanted more to close doors than to open them ”.
In the middle of the day on Monday, Mélanie Boulanger said that she had just "lived the worst moment of my life".
"My story is that of an elected representative of the Republic who, like so many other elected representatives, finds herself alone, without an answer, when they ask the public authorities to help them fight against delinquency and drug trafficking".
She also denounced "the rumors" linked to a "violation of the secrecy of the instruction".
“I cannot understand the custody regime.
The custody regime was not justified because it was not necessary to establish my integrity and my fight as mayor against delinquency.
"
Anti-narcotics crackdown in Seine-Maritime: "I have just had the worst time of my life," says Mélanie Boulanger, PS mayor of Canteleu pic.twitter.com/rpX5TZ3jqe
- BFMTV (@BFMTV) October 11, 2021
The regional press, relying on a local source, spoke of "a historic family in Canteleu" about the people implicated by the authorities.
"Paris Normandie" evokes "people in the sights of the police for several years (...) This family very strongly influenced the local political world in Canteleu".
Mélanie Boulanger claims to have sounded the alarm bells for seven years.
I did not always have an answer, but I did not wait to act ”.
She says she was intimidated after the installation of cameras and a strengthening of the interventions of the municipal police.
She assures us that the traffickers “have tried several times to get in touch with me through intermediaries.
They obviously never called me themselves.
That's what I had to explain, ”she said.
The mayor "simply asks that all this stop, for my relatives, for my daughter first," she said, her voice charged with emotion reproaching a journalist for having asked the latter questions that she did not know. shouldn't have heard.
She finally defended her town.
“Canteleu is a suburban town
(of Rouen)
that we would like to reduce to a sum of problems.
Yet it is a city rich in courageous women and men, involved in the associative fabric to teach children, to help, care for, animate, defend, innovate.
"
