Under the colors of the CGT, he led countless struggles to support the hotel workers in Ile-de-France. Last notable feat of arms: it was in the spring of 2021, when the chambermaids employed in an Ibis establishment in the Batignolles district of Paris reached an agreement improving their remuneration and their working conditions, after twenty-two months of mobilization.
But his image as a pugnacious activist, the bête noire of the bosses, has just taken a hit. Claude Lévy was sentenced on Tuesday November 28 to eight months in prison and a fine of 5,000 euros for fraud. The 14e criminal chamber of the Nanterre judicial court accuses the sixty-year-old, now retired, of having “abused” of its quality of “union defender” by asking for money from employees he assisted, while he was working “a disinterested mandate, which does not involve any financial compensation”.
Apart from the former treasurer of the CGT-Prestige and Economic Hotels (CGT-HPE), two other people were prosecuted. Tiziri Kandi, former deputy treasurer of this organization and wife of Mr. Lévy, was given a six-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of 5,000 euros for the same reasons as her husband. As for Antoinette Renssen, former administrative secretary of the CGT-HPE and ex-wife of Mr. Lévy, she was released.
“Psychological pressure”
The affair broke out in 2019, when a lawyer, recently recruited by the CGT-HPE, discovered that Mr. Lévy was requesting “donations” with the people he accompanied, in recourse to the industrial tribunal or during disputes with their employers. She was moved by this, internally and with the trade unionist, recalling that such practices violated “the essential principle of free union defense”, according to the formula used by the Nanterre court in its decision. Mr. Lévy argued, at the time, that the remittances of money in question were used to finance the union as well as the strike funds and that they had been validated by the governing bodies of his organization.
The lawyer’s alert gave rise to an audit and then a criminal investigation. At the end of the procedure, nearly fifty women and men, mostly from immigrant backgrounds, declared themselves victims of Mr. Lévy’s actions, which consisted of demanding application fees (between 150 euros and 250 euros) and a commission of 10% on the total amount of compensation obtained from the industrial tribunal. Two structures of the CGT – the Ile-de-France regional union and the Paris departmental union – also became civil parties in the case, considering that Mr. Lévy’s methods were intolerable and scandalized the entire CGT family.
You have 50% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.