Pierre Gauttieri categorically rejects the accusations against him and is therefore “calm about the sequence of events”. The chief of staff of the mayor LR of Saint-Etienne also ruled out resigning on Wednesday, the day after his police custody as part of a judicial investigation into political blackmail against the former first deputy of the town hall.
Mayor Gabriel Perdriau was also placed in police custody on Tuesday as part of the investigations into the filming and use of a video shot in 2014 in which we see Gilles Artigues, also a former deputy known for his Catholic commitment, massaged by a man in a hotel room in Paris. “Neither the mayor nor I are the sponsors of this video,” said the chief of staff in an interview broadcast Wednesday on the local television channel TV7.
LR launches exclusion proceedings against the mayor
At the same time, a hundred people demonstrated in the rain in front of the town hall to demand his resignation, that of the mayor and the deputy for education, also incriminated in this affair. Several local elected officials have already called on the mayor and his team to step back, while LR launched an exclusion procedure against him.
On Wednesday, the Medef de la Loire and three other employers’ organizations published a press release denouncing “practices outside of any republican and managerial ethics”. “We wish to strongly challenge the elected officials of Saint-Etienne Métropole and the City on the need and urgency to take the necessary measures so that governance regains serenity, teamwork and exemplarity”, says this press release.
A “daub of manners”
The case broke at the end of August when the news site Mediapart published the detailed confessions of a former close friend of the municipal team on a “daub of morals” organized according to him at the request of the mayor and his relatives. The Lyon public prosecutor’s office opened a judicial investigation for “invasion of privacy, aggravated blackmail, embezzlement of public property by a person in charge of a public function, breach of trust and concealment of these offenses” after a complaint by Gilles Artigues.