Marseilles (AFP)

Again worried about his management of Marseille for 25 years, the former mayor of the city Jean-Claude Gaudin (LR) was placed in police custody on Wednesday, as part of a judicial investigation on the employment of relatives having passed the retirement age.

"Mr. Gaudin has been heard under police custody since this morning (Wednesday)," a judicial source told AFP, confirming information from a source close to the case and a hearing mentioned Tuesday evening by the local site Marsactu.

The day before, the homes of the former strongman of Marseille, 81, had been searched in this case.

Contacted by AFP, Mr. Gaudin's lawyer did not immediately respond and several members of his entourage did not wish to react.

"This judicial information concerns the situation of people who have continued their activity having exceeded the legal retirement age", according to a judicial source.

In a vitriolic report made at the end of 2019, the Regional Chamber of Accounts had pinned down the management of the city by Mr. Gaudin, from finances to staff, including real estate.

The Chamber noted in particular a "management of retirements (...) for the least costly" with several postings considered "illegal" in the mayor's office.

- More than one million euros per year -

She was particularly surprised that 11 people over the age of 69 - and mostly 70 and over - were kept in work over the period 2012-2017.

It thus noted the case of the dean of the mayor's office, in charge of public relations and aged "over 77 years at the end of 2018" or of a temporary employee, who has since died, but who was over 82 years old at the time of her departure, end of 2017.

The loyal director of Jean-Claude Gaudin's cabinet, Claude Bertrand, an employee of the city despite being 73 years old at the time, or another member of his cabinet, 71 years old, who did not enter "into any legal framework of exemption" , were also pinned.

For the magistrates of the Regional Chamber of Accounts, the city "knowingly" violated the legal rules on retirement, thus causing damage of more than one million euros per year at the expense of the taxpayer.

The facts which earned Mr. Gaudin to be in police custody on Wednesday were revealed as part of the PNF's preliminary investigation into the management of the working time of municipal agents in Marseille, which ended in December.

In this component, the former mayor could be referred to a criminal court, as well as six of his relatives.

This case is currently in adversarial phase, we learned from a source close to the case, and "no direction has been taken for the moment".

The PNF accuses him in particular of the existence of undue overtime and unjustified absenteeism of the agents, in particular at the Samu social.

When octogenarian Jean-Claude Gaudin retired from political life after a quarter of a century as mayor of Marseille, it was won by the left-wing coalition of Printemps Marseille in July 2020.

The new mayor Benoît Payan (PS) castigated at the beginning of February 2021 a "catastrophic" financial legacy, believing that "public money (had) been wasted, thrown away, sold off".

© 2021 AFP