Former Saint-Etienne Mayor Gaël Perdriau Sentenced to Prison
An appeals court has upheld a prison sentence and increased the ineligibility period for former Saint-Etienne Mayor Gaël Perdriau in a blackmail case.
KEY POINTS
- Former Saint-Etienne Mayor Gaël Perdriau received a five-year prison sentence, with four years to serve firmly.
- His political ineligibility was increased from five years to ten years.
- He was convicted of blackmail and embezzling public funds regarding a covertly filmed video of his former deputy Gilles Artigues.
- Perdriau denied the charges and maintained his innocence in court.
The Lyon appeals court sentenced former Saint-Etienne Mayor Gaël Perdriau to five years in prison, including four years firm and one year suspended. The court also imposed a ten-year period of ineligibility, which is double the five-year ban ordered in the initial trial.
Judges found the former mayor guilty of participating in a conspiracy to blackmail his former first deputy, Gilles Artigues. The case stems from a covertly filmed intimate video of Artigues with a sex worker in a Paris hotel room in January 2015, which was used to suppress his political independence.
“You have just condemned an innocent person.”
The court also convicted Perdriau of embezzling public funds to finance the operation. The alliance with Artigues had previously helped secure Perdriau's election as mayor in 2014 before political relations deteriorated.
Perdriau has consistently denied initiating the trap, blaming former close collaborators instead. Upon hearing the verdict, he told the court president that she had condemned an innocent person before signing documents for his immediate imprisonment.
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