Ten elected officials from the municipal majority in Saint-Etienne announced this Monday evening the creation of a group distinct from that of mayor Gaël Perdriau (ex-LR), following new indictments from the latter on Friday in the affair of the sex tape that has shaken the city since its revelation in August 2022. Despite the defections of these deputies and delegated municipal councilors of the City, Gaël Perdriau remains at the head of a group of 34 elected officials, the majority within the municipal council of Saint -Etienne who has 59.
“Gaël Perdriau has decided to remain in the position of mayor […] we cannot stand by and do nothing,” declared Nicole Peycelon (LR), member of the new group of elected officials to “mark our difference with the mayor in his management of the blackmail affair.” The latter, in a press release, indicate that this decision is in fact “motivated by the latest indictments” of the 51-year-old councilor and “is part of an apolitical approach which does not respond to the injunction of any party “.
New indictment Friday
They also underline their “desire to pursue with determination the project for which the people of Stéphane have trusted (them). On Friday, the Saint-Etienne mayor was indicted for “participation in a criminal association with a view to committing blackmail” and “embezzlement of public funds”. In April, Lyon magistrates indicted him for “blackmail”, as well as three other protagonists in a case of blackmail using an intimate video targeting the city’s former centrist first deputy Gilles Artigues, in order to neutralize him politically. .
Gaël Perdriau, under judicial supervision, “still contests all of the facts”, according to his lawyers, Me Christophe Ingrain and Jean-Felix Luciani. At the heart of the case, his possible role in the filming, use and financing via embezzlement of public funds of this video shot in January 2015 in which we see Gilles Artigues being massaged by an escort boy in a bedroom. hotel.