Despite national pressure, ex-LR Gaël Perdriau still has supporters locally.

A large part of the councilors of the municipal majority of Saint-Etienne expressed their support on Monday for the mayor, called to resign by many elected officials for his involvement in a case of blackmail.

“We would like to express our amazement at the political and media surge of recent months”, declare in a press release 32 of the 47 elected representatives of the majority, invoking “publications based on illegal recordings, disseminated out of context and carried out in a private setting (who) question us”.

A video from 2014

Following the revelations of

Mediapart

, the 50-year-old elected official finds himself at the heart of a judicial investigation into the filming and use for political purposes of a video of a sexual nature in which we can see his ex-first centrist deputy Gilles Artigues being massaged by a man in a hotel room, at the end of 2014. Namely accused by Gilles Artigues, placed in police custody in mid-September, quoted in damning audio recordings, Gaël Perdriau has always claimed his innocence.

“Only justice should be the recipient of the different elements, and the opposing versions, in this affair”, affirm Monday the supports of the city councilor, calling “for calm, serenity, and to let work on the one hand justice and on the other hand Gaël Perdriau and his majority”.

Slanderous remarks against Laurent Wauquiez

On December 1, seven elected officials from the municipal majority asked Gaël Perdriau to "ask the question of whether he should remain at the head of Saint-Etienne and the Metropolis", the day after the dissemination of new revelations from

Mediapart

, reporting this times the slanderous remarks of the mayor towards his former ally Laurent Wauquiez, LR president of the Auvergne Rhône-Alpes region.

Twenty-five elected officials from the Loire, mostly right-wingers, had also signed a call for his resignation on the same day.

During a meeting on Monday, the majority of the vice-presidents of the Saint-Etienne metropolis asked Gaël Perdriau for an effective withdrawal, or even a resignation, from the presidency of this structure of 53 municipalities by its next assembly scheduled for Thursday.

Definitively excluded from LR last month, Gaël Perdriau declared last week before his municipal council that he intended to remain in office at the head of the town hall and the metropolis even in the event of indictment, invoking the presumption of innocence. .

Policy

Sextape blackmail in Saint-Etienne: Perdriau increasingly isolated

Policy

Perdriau affair: Retailleau and Pradié call on the mayor of Saint-Étienne to resign

  • Gael Perdriau

  • Saint Etienne

  • Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes

  • Blackmail

  • sextape