It was probably only a matter of time. Isabelle Balkany, wife of the former mayor of Levallois-Perret (Hauts-de-Seine) Patrick Balkany and, like him, convicted of tax evasion, has had her Legion of Honor withdrawn, according to a decision published this Saturday in the Journal official. “This exclusion entails the definitive deprivation of the exercise of the rights and prerogatives attached to the quality of member of the Legion of Honor”, according to a decree of the Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honor published under the Presidency of the Republic .
This decision is retroactive to March 4, 2020, the date of the conviction of Isabelle Balkany and her husband on appeal to three years in prison and ten years of ineligibility for “tax fraud of an exceptional magnitude”.
“It’s an additional humiliation”
“I received the Legion of Honor for my work as a local elected official, particularly in favor of children and education. I made a mistake, it was sure, by not declaring my family patrimony, but it had absolutely nothing to do with my local function, ”she reacted.
“It is an additional humiliation, obviously public and perhaps unnecessary (…). My conviction had no connection with my local management, for which I was decorated, “Isabelle Balkany, who was first assistant to her husband, a former right-wing figure in the Hauts-de-Seine, told AFP. , and replaced him as mayor at a time when he was incarcerated.