One yr earlier than the municipal elections, the specter of a trial is strengthened in opposition to the mayor of Saint-Etienne, Gaël Perdriau. The Lyon prosecution requested Wednesday, March 26, the dismissal of the councilor earlier than the Criminal Court for “blackmail, subtraction, embezzlement of public funds by a depositary of the public authority and participation in an association of criminals,” stated the prosecutor in an announcement.
The case considerations suspicions of blackmail on Gilles Artigues, former first centrist assistant and potential rival of the mayor, filmed in a room of a Parisian lodge in January 2015 being massaged by an escort-boy.
Gaël Perdriau, excluded from the Party Les Républicains and vilified by his opponents, has all the time proclaimed his innocence and declared that he wouldn’t resign, even when he set off together with his duties to the Metropolis of Saint-Etienne. He has not but made recognized if he was going to run for a brand new mandate in 2026. Questioned by the France-Presse company on the indictment of the Lyon prosecutor’s workplace, Mr. Perdria, who ensures that he had not but obtained the paperwork, refused to specific himself at this stage.
A trial additionally required in opposition to three former relations of the mayor
The prosecution additionally requested a trial in opposition to three former relations of the mayor suspected of getting organized the filming of the “sextape”. He requires referring Pierre Gauttieri, former director of cupboard of Gaël Perdriau, for a similar chiefs because the mayor, in addition to for “use, conservation or disclosure of a document or recording relating to sexual words or images”.
He additionally requested to evaluate Samy Kefi-Jérôme, former training assistant, for “infringement of privacy intimacy by fixing, registration for transmission of the image of a person with sexual nature”. He lastly requires the dismissal specifically for “complicity in blackmail” by Gilles Rossary-Lenglet, ex-companion of Samy Kefi-Jérôme, who had revealed the case to Mediapart in 2022.
On the opposite hand, the prosecution requires a dismissal in opposition to 4 different individuals indicted by the investigating magistrates, {couples} on the head of Stéphanois associations suspected of getting served to remunerate the authors of the “sextape” in trade for fictitious providers funded by the city corridor. In their case, the investigation didn’t permit “To characterize (…) constituent charges of these offenses ”explains the Lyon prosecutor, Thierry Dran.
It is now up to the investigating judges to make the closing order of the judicial information, he specifies. The latter had rendered an end of information in October, but a request for an act had then pushed the end of the investigation several months, leaving a doubt about the possibility of organizing a possible trial before the municipal election.
https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2025/03/26/chantage-a-la-sextape-un-proces-requis-contre-le-maire-de-saint-etienne-gael-perdriau_6586458_3224.html