Levallois-Perret (AFP)
Mayor LR de Levallois-Perret Patrick Balkany, incarcerated since September 13 at the Health prison after two convictions for tax evasion and laundering of tax evasion, and his wife and first assistant Isabelle Balkany renounce to represent themselves at the town hall, has tweeted the latter on Wednesday.
"The universal suffrage of French citizens and Levallois voters is voluntarily confiscated by justice", it is written in a press release signed by the two spouses who announce the appointment of two relatives to lead the list of the majority to the municipal elections next March, that "we will support"
Denouncing pell-mell an "instruction to the prosecution", a judicial calendar having for objective "to prevent us from being a candidate in the municipal elections of 2020" or an incarceration "unprecedented in a case of this nature which seriously endangered the Patrick's health ", the couple said they would not run for a sixth term.
On Wednesday, at the end of their tax fraud appeal trial, the prosecution asked for a sentence of four years in prison against Patrick Balkany, four years including two years suspended against Isabelle but above all, ten years of ineligibility against the two , with "provisional execution".
The decision must be made on March 4, eleven days before the first round of municipal elections. "We take note of it," write the Balkany in the press release, without giving further details.
The list of the municipal majority will therefore be led by the deputy delegate for youth and events David-Xavier Weiss and the former cabinet director Agnès Pottier-Dumas.
Between now and the elections, Isabelle Balkany, 72, "will continue her mission as interim mayor (....) because the management of the city and the services rendered to Levalloisians must in no case be penalized by this judicial diktat" , say the two city officials.
Patrick Balkany, 71, was elected head of Levallois with his wife Isabelle as first assistant for the first time in 1983. Since then, the duo has reigned almost without interruption in this posh town of Hauts-de-Seine.
In February, they again have an appointment with the justice system for their trial on appeal for laundering tax evasion. At first instance, Patrick Balkany had been sentenced to five years in prison and Isabelle to four years.
© 2019 AFP