In Canteleu, a mayor under the influence of drug dealers

In Canteleu, in Seine-Maritime, anything can happen. The best, this Sunday, May 1: the young football team, ranked at the very bottom of the scale, in D4, crushed at home – 3-1 – Le Havre yet six notches above in regional. The worst, on April 22: Mélanie Boulanger, 45, mayor of this town of 15,000 inhabitants, was indicted in Bobigny for complicity in drug trafficking by judge Simon Rintaud, and placed under judicial supervision. The day before, his deputy Hasbi Colak, 39, in charge of economic development, businesses and employment, suffered the same fate before the same judge.

Read also: The PS mayor of Canteleu indicted for complicity in drug trafficking

This May 1, the mayor did not come to congratulate the winners. “She may have been afraid that her electronic bracelet would ring in front of us,” jokes a supporter who knows very well that she is not wearing one. Last week, Mélanie Boulanger shone by her absence at the town hall but did not, however, shave the walls of the city. In broad daylight: shopping for the house, visits to the hospital, sports activities with her daughter. In all these circumstances, the residents of Cantilian observed a natural, relaxed, smiling and hurried mayor. But in a hurry, she is all the time.

Mélanie Boulanger stuck her first poster for the PS at the age of 12, after having given up nursing because she feared the sight of blood. From the age of 16, she joined the party. She will be at the top of the PS-EELV list at the 2021 regionals, with a method: “Overcome our differences. And a project: “Building Normandy in a climate emergency. “Her indictment decided her to resign from her vice-presidency of the Rouen-Normandy metropolis, of which she remains however an adviser.
Canteleu, guided tour. Its Roumare forest (4,000 hectares), a lung of oaks, beeches and hornbeams for neighboring Rouen, 7 kilometers away. His Flaubert pavilion, in Le Croisset, which has become the chic district, a vestige of the property where the writer lived for thirty-five years with his realism. Finally, its vast network… hydraulic this one, dating from the Middle Ages, for the wheat and paper mills which gave birth to the Indians, painted or printed fabrics. Opposite this hill today are low, four-storey, renovated buildings. Further on, the green and above all “warm” city of the agglomeration. On its heights, two large beige towers. To this tourist brochure, we can add a new local attraction: the Meziani. New, not really.

The Meziani clan had a sense of impunity: ‘If she does the right thing, she will be re-elected, otherwise buildings will burn down’

This surname has been synonymous with traffic for more than twenty years in this city where the unemployment rate for 16-65 year olds is twice the national average. The name of the Meziani has therefore appeared for ages in various narcotics or PJ procedures. “It makes you wonder why justice acted so late”, slips a criminal lawyer from Rouen. Of the siblings (five brothers, two sisters), let us quote Samir, the eldest, currently promoter in Morocco, where he took refuge in 2008, when he was accused of having ordered an assassination in Normandy. In the absence of charges, the French courts acquitted him. In 2001, Mustapha, who has since died in a road accident, stabbed a rival with a saber, in the middle of the afternoon, behind the petanque grounds. It is now Aziz and Montacer, known as “Menthe-à-l’eau” (no one explains the reason for this nickname), who have taken over Samir’s business. We are far from a cartel in Canteleu, but the means are considerable: constant go-fast, in semi-rigid (Spain) or racing car (Netherlands). Laundering at the end of the chain. Classic. At each transfer of power, the outgoing mayor whispers to his successor the pedigree of the “Mez”, as if he was entrusting him, trembling, with the nuclear codes.

Before the April indictments, a very long investigation, started in September 2019, mobilized 150 police officers from Seine-Maritime, Seine-Saint-Denis, Yvelines and Val-de-Marne, supported by 60 departmental security investigators. and public security in Rouen. First take: two “individuals” in possession of 2 kilos of cocaine and 60,000 euros. They drive a vehicle loaned by the deputy Hasbi Colak, who is also their friend, who claims to have ignored the use they would make of his Citröen Berlingo. The deputy, who owns a kebab in Canteleu, comes from a historic local family in the Turkish community, made up of 200 households. In town hall, he is a mediator who defuses conflicts with the “big brothers”, pacifies tensions, lends a hand to fill out forms, sometimes pushes files without controlling their progress: “It is not a question of small arrangements. My client only does mediation, ”insists his lawyer, Jérémy Kalfon. The proof: Hasbi Colak also rebukes – and sometimes harshly – the “little brothers”, whom he nicknames “crabs”, for their repeated incivility. At the end of 2019, an installer of surveillance cameras arrives to set up a rue Alexandre-Dumas, a hotspot for dealing. “Crabs” swore at the installer: “Motherfucker, you’re ruining our business! Then, at about ten, they hit him. Hasbi Colak called them “big jerks”. Mélanie Boulanger was beside herself: “What got into them? Can’t they go any further? she will say to her assistant.

Of the two men to whom he lent his car, defended by Me Fabien Pichottino, one, today in pre-trial detention, is considered the right arm of the Meziani; the second, free under judicial supervision, is the owner of a bar that has become the stronghold of a bunch of local bosses. Customs, who are also interested in the Mez clan, put pressure on them. Several service vehicles were then set on fire. The police, on the other hand, sound those of the suspects. We also listen to their cell phones, all that for two years. Seventy listening volumes! In their cars, Mez and consorts confidently chat deals, contracts and… balls. There floats around them a sweet smell of impunity. The phones of the mayor and her deputy will in turn be “connected”.

Because, in February 2020, a muscular raid by the police (with their vicious dogs) at the HQ of the suspects really almost went very, very badly. Immediately, the deputy received an insulting phone call from one of the Meziani at the town hall. They too, Hasbi Colak knows them all from school. Unable to calm his interlocutor, he passed the communication to the mayor, who also took it for his rank. According to “Le Monde”, Mélanie Boulanger immediately sent a furious SMS to the commissioner: “This control has greatly annoyed the young people. She forwarded the SMS to her deputy, so that young and old would understand that she was not behind this police raid. She received a clear message from the Mez, also mentioned by “Le Monde”: “If she does what is necessary, she will be reelected [sous-entendu, on amènera des voix]. Otherwise, buildings will burn. Later, at the end of February, coming out of a meeting with police officers from Rouen, she would have warned her deputy of an imminent control of deal points. Categorically, the deputy told those around him that, on the contrary, he never wanted to know anything about police operations.

Two kilos of cocaine found in a car loaned by the deputy mayor

On August 8, 2021, the investigation ended with nineteen arrests and eleven indictments, including six with a warrant. 15 kilos of heroin, 25 kilos of cutting products, 375,000 euros in cash and 625,000 in accounts were seized, not to mention weapons of war. On October 8, Mélanie Boulanger and Hasbi Colak are heard in police custody for complicity in drug trafficking. They are questioned about the nature of their links with the suspects. “A permanent and exhausting balancing act,” they say. Real complicity? Clumsiness? Skids? Unfortunate initiatives? Both, presumed innocent, come out free. “They did pretty well,” said a participant in the case.

“It was the worst moment of my life, the world upside down, a delirium, a nightmare”, testified Mélanie Boulanger during a press conference which she held the day after her police custody, in the presence of her lawyer Arnaud de Saint Rémy. Traffic ? She never let her guard down, despite pressures of all kinds, like “we know where your daughter goes to school”. For years, she claims to have harassed, in vain, the prefectural authorities and public security to obtain staff. In 2020 and 2021, it published two open letters to the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin. His deputy, less combative, said he was “disgusted”. Since his police custody, he eased off on the mediation side. He was convinced that the police had done their part.

But six months later, the tile. The newspaper “Paris-Normandie” then the online investigative media “Le Poulpe” reveal the indictment of the elected official and her deputy. Concerning the levels of responsibility, does the judge of Bobigny have a reading of the file different from that of the investigators? “Mayors are experiencing growing legal insecurity,” says David Lisnard, Mayor of Cannes and new President of the Association of Mayors of France. The law contradicts itself, is interpreted. This insecurity encourages inaction. Does the judge want to send a message to the new generation of elected officials, deputies, mediators, municipal employees less trained in law, less rigorous, less honest? “You have to oppose all the time, summarizes François Pupponi, deputy of Val-d’Oise and former mayor of Sarcelles. To say no, it is necessary to have a sacred abnegation, courage, character and vigilance. These two elected officials are convinced that social peace cannot be bought: doing so pushes back the problems, which we pay more for on arrival.

During her vows for 2019, Mélanie Boulanger had expounded on this question posed in one of her philosophy homework: “Can we prefer injustice to disorder? Already in the 10th century, the Viking Rollo, first Count of Normandy, had the same dilemma: the King of the Franks, Charles the Simple, asked him to re-establish security on his lands in Normandy, in exchange for the recognition… of his title of count! He restores peace with nobility.