Tongues continue to speak out in Saint-Étienne after the political blackmail scandal within the municipality.
After the former first deputy mayor, Gilles Artigues, an opposition municipal councilor in turn denounces pressure within the town hall led by Gaël Perdriau, the mayor of Saint-Étienne.
According to Franceinfo, the elected leftist, Ali Rasfi, would also have been the victim of a form of video blackmail.
The latter was a candidate on a leftist list and assessor of a polling station.
During the March 2020 municipal elections, he received several messages from Mohamed Ghoulam, project manager in the mayor's office.
A first SMS sets the tone: “You have been filmed influencing voters, know that we will use the video.
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“We are entering another world!
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If Ali Rasfi does not deny having discussed with voters on election day, he explains: "The neighborhood where I was an assessor is the neighborhood of my childhood, so of course I met old acquaintances, in a friendly setting, I took news of each other, but I respected the framework that constrains me as an assessor!
I didn't understand.
".
The assessor even suspects some people of having filmed him without his knowledge in his polling station.
"But it's not politics anymore, we're entering another world!"
“, he gets angry.
Then, a new message will confirm his suspicions: "Before acting in this way, tell yourself that there are mobile phones everywhere which film everything and everyone...".
If these SMS had been forgotten by Ali Rasfi, the revelations of Mediapart have since refreshed his memory.
“It reveals a system that has been in place for a very long time.
We, the elected opposition members, are subject to special surveillance where we cannot make a movement, a gesture, without this fear of being permanently filmed, ”he explains to Franceinfo.
Read alsoSextape blackmail in Saint-Etienne: can a mayor be forced to leave?
Since the revelations of Mediapart around the municipality of Saint-Étienne, Gaël Perdriau, the mayor LR of the city has assured “take a step back” and delegate his functions as president to the Metropolis.
On the town hall side, the 50-year-old elected parallel “proposed that external municipal representations be provided by his deputies”.
This decision was taken "in order to ensure continuity in the quality of the work undertaken and the serenity of the institution of the city", specifies the press release of the municipal majority.
The image of the mayor of Saint-Étienne has been considerably tarnished by a case of political sex-tape blackmail, currently under judicial investigation in Lyon.
Read also“My arms are falling off me, it’s scandalous”: the sextape affair, the other cauldron of Saint-Étienne
The mayor of Saint-Étienne has always assured that he did not sponsor the sex tape where we see the former first deputy being massaged by a man in a hotel room in Paris and he denies having used these images to put pressure on this centrist known for his Catholic commitment.
Mediapart, however, published damning audio recordings in mid-September.
We hear Gaël Perdriau talking about this video with his ex-first deputy, referring to a broadcast “in a small circle, with parsimony” in a conversation dating from July 2018, according to the investigative media.
