The former strongman of the Socialist Party in Bouches-du-Rhône Jean-Noël Guérini resigned from his mandate as senator after his final conviction in a case of rigged markets, the upper house announced on Thursday.
At the opening of the public session, the session president Dominique Théophile announced that Jean-Noël Guérini had informed the President of the Senate, Gérard Larcher, of his resignation as of Wednesday. The Court of Cassation definitively confirmed on March 13 the conviction of Senator Jean-Noël Guérini to prison and ineligibility in a case of rigged markets, putting an end to a long legal battle dating back to a 2009 report.
Five years of ineligibility
President of the general council (former name of the departmental council) of Bouches-du-Rhône from 1998 to 2015, Jean-Noël Guérini, 73, was sentenced to three years in prison including 18 months suspended, a fine of 30,000 euros and five years of ineligibility, during his appeal trial in 2022. He was accused, when he was head of the department, of having preempted land under the pretext of saving a rare plant there, then of having voted for its resale to an urban community, in order to favor his brother Alexandre Guérini, nicknamed “Mr. Brother”, who needed it for the extension of a landfill.
Seized in 2021 by the Minister of Justice, the Constitutional Council rejected the request for forfeiture of his mandate as senator – the fourth since 1998 – due to the absence of a final conviction. This allowed Jean-Noël Guérini to continue his activities in the Senate, where he again spoke at the beginning of March in a public session for the RDSE group made up of radicals and left-wing radicals.
He was replaced in the Senate by Mireille Jouve, who appeared second on his various left list in the 2020 senatorial elections.