New chapter in the sex tape affair in Saint-Etienne. The artist Philippe Buil and his wife Chantal Sabatier, aged 59, are suspected of having played a role in financing the intimate video blackmail operation which has shaken the town hall of Saint-Etienne for sixteen months. They were indicted on December 7, we learned this Friday from consistent sources.
They are being prosecuted for “complicity in embezzlement of public funds” and “breach of trust”.
An intimate video in a Parisian hotel?
Chantal Sabatier and her husband headed the association Artistes de la Galerie Art Pluriel (Agap), whose premises were searched just after the publication of the article by Mediapart which caused the scandal to break out. At the end of August 2022, the news site revealed the existence of an intimate video filmed in January 2015 in a Parisian hotel to blackmail the First Deputy of Saint-Etienne, Gilles Artigues, a rival of the mayor, Gaël Perdriau.
Justice had opened an investigation and on April 6, Gaël Perdriau was indicted for blackmail, at the same time as his former chief of staff Pierre Gauttieri, his former deputy Samy Kéfi-Jérôme and the latter’s ex-companion, Gilles Rossary-Lenglet.
Perdriau continues to proclaim his innocence
Gilles Rossary-Lenglet – the source of the Mediapart article – claims to have set up this “morality shaming” operation at the request of the mayor and his entourage with the aim of neutralizing the centrist elected official. He claims to have been paid via fictitious services invoiced to two local associations, including Agap. Created in March 2015, the association received a grant of 20,000 euros from the town hall four months later.
At 51, the mayor of Saint-Etienne continues to proclaim his innocence. Excluded from the Les Républicains party, he refused to cede his elective functions, while withdrawing from the metropolis, of which he remains president.