Nanterre (AFP)

"Patrick wishes to lead" the list of the majority: this is how Isabelle Balkany has formalized before the municipal majority the candidacy of her husband, currently detained, the municipal Levallois-Perret (Hauts-de-Seine), raising grinding of teeth among the political class.

The wish of Mayor LR, imprisoned since his recent convictions for tax evasion and money laundering, was passed Monday evening by his wife, sentenced for the same cases, to 49 registered - including 37 elected - from the list of the municipal majority gathered at behind closed doors.

"I confirmed to them that there would be a list of the municipal majority, a list Balkany and that Patrick wants to drive," said Ms. Balkany, first assistant, to AFP.

At the end of this meeting, Patrick Balkany called his wife on his cellphone and it was loudspeaker so that her husband could thank the representatives of the municipal administration who had attended the meeting and the elected officials for the work done on the budget, discussed Monday night.

A hearty discussion in the "warm" tone during which there was talk of Mr. Balkany's "back pain" and his evening meal based on "fried eggs and shells in butter", according to elected officials joined by AFP.

But the elected from his place of detention, "did not mention the municipal elections," said the couple's lawyers, Romain Dieudonné and Pierre-Olivier Sur.

This confirmation of candidacy is in any case a few hours after Patrick Balkany had reiterated his request for release before the Paris Court of Appeal, saying he was angry "to be considered a plague victim".

- "Guignolade" -

On the side of the municipal opposition and the Palais Bourbon, this candidacy, emanating from an embassy, ​​has creaked teeth, right and left.

"I find it very sad to get there," reacted Arnaud de Courson, opposition municipal councilor who also declared mayoral candidate on Monday. "He's in jail, we're not a candidate when we're in jail!", Said the elected DVD.

For Bertrand Percie du Sert, Balkany's former deputy to the Security, who joined the municipal opposition at the end of June, "there is a lack of clarity in the majority". "If there was need to confirm this candidacy is that they are afraid of dissenting lists," analyzes the elected past LREM. According to him, "last night, the tone was rather: + those who do not want to be on the list, they must say right now +".

In the National Assembly, the same reactions of disapprobation to several deputies.

"It's his own responsibility, at least I do not participate in this kind of things," broke loose on BFM Damien Abad (LR).

"We will welcome it with a concert of pans," promised his side Fabien Roussel (PCF), while Bruno Bonnell (LREM) castigated a "guignolade".

The Balkany spouses, who have spent 37 years at the head of the Levallois town hall, must be retried next week for tax evasion and in February for aggravated money laundering.

The 71-year-old man is incarcerated at the Paris prison for Health since his first conviction in September.

The couple appealed all his convictions and Mr Balkany filed several applications for release.

If the mayor of Levallois was again sentenced after his appeal, he could appeal to the Supreme Court. This appeal would suspend a sentence of ineligibility, but also the execution of a prison sentence, unless the Court of Appeal issued a new arrest warrant at the hearing.

The couple already had trouble with the law in 1996: they had both been sentenced to 15 months in prison suspended, 30,000 euros in fines and 120,000 euros in damages for having assigned three employees of the mayor's office. maintenance of their homes in Levallois and Giverny (Eure).

© 2019 AFP