Sextape blackmail: an assistant to Gaël Perdriau resigns

NOTNew twist in the affair of the sextape blackmail at the town hall of Saint-Étienne. One of Mayor Gaël Perdriau’s deputies announced Friday, September 23 to Agence France-Presse that he had resigned from his mandates in the city and in the metropolis. This is Samy Kéfi-Jérôme, also implicated in this affair of political sextape blackmail which has shaken the city since the end of August. “This morning I presented my resignation from my mandates as municipal councilor and metropolitan councilor” to the prefect of the Loire “and I informed the mayor”, writes the municipal assistant for education in a press release sent at AFP.

In the turmoil since the confessions of a former close to the municipality on a “daub of morals” dating back to 2015, Mayor Gaël Perdriau for his part decided Thursday to delegate his representative functions to the metropolis and the town hall in a concern back to “serenity”. Earlier this week, the 50-year-old elected official had already dismissed his chief of staff, also under fire from critics because of his alleged role in the blackmail.

“I deplore the personal attacks of which I am the object”

The affair broke out at the end of August when the Mediapart site published the detailed confessions of the former companion of Samy Kéfi-Jérôme on the shooting of a compromising video, sponsored according to him by the mayor and his entourage to neutralize the ex- first centrist deputy, Gilles Artigues. According to him, the operation was remunerated via fictitious services invoiced to two cultural associations subsidized by the town hall.

Gaël Perdriau was placed in police custody on September 13, along with his informer, his education assistant and his chief of staff.

“I deplore the personal attacks to which I am subject and note that the conditions for the exercise of my functions are no longer met”, underlined Friday in his press release Samy Kéfi-Jérôme, stressing that he lived “like a profound injustice the charges against him.

The elected 42-year-old had sat on the municipal council of Saint-Étienne since 2014, the date of election of Gaël Perdriau at the head of this city in full industrial decline. He did not resign from his functions on the regional council but had been suspended, at the end of August, from his functions as digital strategy delegate by the president of the region Laurent Wauquiez (LR).