The decision on appeal was harder for the EELV mayor of Grenoble. On Wednesday, Éric Piolle was sentenced to a suspended fine in a 2015 favoritism case, a decision he said he “respects” but does not “understand”. The decision by the Grenoble Court of Appeal thus partially overturns a decision rendered in October 2022 by the Valence criminal court, which acquitted Éric Piolle and his six co-defendants and which the Grenoble public prosecutor’s office had appealed.
The elected official, as well as three co-defendants, are found guilty of the acts with which they are accused and sentenced to a suspended fine of 8,000 euros, the court indicated in its judgment rendered under deliberation. The three other defendants, including the association Fusées, beneficiary of the public contract, are on the other hand released.
“I don’t understand the reasoning”
During the second trial, which took place in June, the attorney general requested a fine of 15,000 euros, including 7,500 suspended and “suggested a symbolic suspended prison sentence” against Éric Piolle. She had not requested a penalty of ineligibility. “As mayor, justiciable like the others, I respect this decision, even if I do not understand the reasoning behind it,” responded Éric Piolle in a press release on Wednesday.
The court “recognized that neither the City nor the Grenoble residents were harmed, that there was neither favor nor harm to anyone,” he continued. “If the sentence, even light, even suspended, is unpleasant for the honest man that I am, it does not call into question my integrity,” he said, adding that a “possible appeal to the Supreme Court” was under study.
The Tile Festival in question
“I am bitter because I was hoping for a confirmed general acquittal,” reacted François Langlois, director general of services at the time and also convicted. “We are found guilty of favoritism without there being a favourite,” he lamented. The Grenoble municipality was accused of having awarded a public contract without competition to an association for the organization of a popular festival which has been held every year since 2014 on one of the main arteries of the city.
The Valence public prosecutor’s office had opened a preliminary investigation in May 2018 following a report from the Regional Chamber of Accounts (CRC), which indicated that the municipality had, against the advice of its public procurement department, awarded in 2015 and 2016 the organization of part of the “Fête des Tuiles” at the “Fusées” association, close to the municipal majority.
The opposition calls for the resignation of the elected
The town hall, for its part, argued that in this specific case it was a public contract with an adapted procedure (MAPA) for an artistic performance that did not require competition.
“From now on Éric Piolle and the kingpins of this favoritism operation are sentenced to a suspended fine but they are condemned”, welcomed Wednesday after the hearing Thierry Aldeguer, lawyer for the municipal opposition, who was a civil party. The opposition group, led by former mayor Alain Carignon, demanded the “resignation” of the city councilor.