Was found to be “fully guilty” of blackmail involving the person of his former deputy based on a video showing him in a sexual relationship with a man, the mayor of Saint-Étienne, Gaël Perdriau, and sentenced to four years in prison.
The president of the court highlighted the “extreme gravity” of the facts, underscoring “the duty of exemplary conduct” and “the representation of elected officials”. Following his trial held in September last, the Lyon correctional court condemned on Monday, December 1st, the mayor of Saint-Étienne, Gaël Perdriau (UDI), for the trap set in 2015 on his former first deputy, Gilles Artigues, filmed by a hidden camera in the company of a male prostitute, before the video thus obtained was used to subject him to blackmail, homophobic since he was threatened with outing.
Although Gaël Perdriau has always denied the facts alleged against him, the statements of his co-defendants regarding his role as initiator convinced the court, which sentenced the 53-year-old mayor to five years in prison, four of them firm, with a detention warrant to take effect in a deferred manner alongside provisional execution – that is, he will be incarcerated soon. He was also sentenced to five years of ineligibility with immediate effect, and must therefore leave his function as mayor without delay.
Gaël Perdriau announces an appeal
“We take note of this decision of an unprecedented severity, the provisional execution of which seems completely unjustified. We will file a request for release as soon as possible”, said Gaël Perdriau’s lawyers in a statement to Agence France-Presse (AFP). “I am innocent, this decision is completely incomprehensible”, repeated their client as he left the court, announcing his decision to appeal. Expelled from his party, The Republicans, when the affair broke in 2022, he nevertheless planned to run for reelection in the 2026 municipal elections.
His co-defendants were also condemned. Pierre Gauttieri, 57, the mayor’s chief of staff from 2014 to 2022 and who described himself as “the man in the shadows”, received a two-year prison sentence. Samy Kéfi-Jérôme, 45, former elementary school teacher who had been named in 2014 as deputy mayor in charge of Education, admitted to acting as bait, installing the hidden camera and participating in the blackmail: he received three years in prison.
Gilles Artigues “relieved”
Gilles Rossary-Lenglet, 53, former partner of Samy Kéfi-Jérôme, is the man who had the idea for the trap with sexual overtones and who handled the technical details of the trap. He was also the one who revealed the entire affair to Mediapart in 2022. Condemned to three years in prison, he said he was “relieved”, commenting: “The judgment says that I am telling the truth. This truth is inexorable for me, but I own it.”
“Relieved”, is also the adjective used by Gilles Artigues, believing that this decision recognizes his “status as a victim”. “Today, I think I will be able to rebuild myself” said the former centrist deputy, who left Saint-Étienne to become the diocesan director of Catholic education in Tarn.
