A French court has sentenced the mayor of Saint-Étienne, Gaël Perdriau, to four years in prison for orchestrating a blackmail scheme involving a secretly recorded sex tape of one of his political rivals.
Perdriau, who has served as mayor of the eastern industrial city since 2014, had repeatedly denied ordering the creation of the compromising video featuring his former deputy, Gilles Artigues, and a male sex worker.
Artigues, a practising Roman Catholic, had previously taken public positions against same-sex marriage—making him a particularly vulnerable target, prosecutors argued.
But on Monday, a court in Lyon found the 53-year-old guilty of blackmail, criminal conspiracy, and misuse of public funds.
He was sentenced to four years in prison—plus an additional suspended year—and handed a five-year ban from holding public office, effective immediately.
Presiding judge Brigitte Vernay declared Perdriau “entirely guilty,” rejecting his claims of innocence.
Prosecutors said Perdriau commissioned the sex tape in early 2015, arranging for Artigues to be filmed in a hotel room. They alleged that he used the footage to keep his deputy in line, warning that the video would be released if Artigues ever challenged him politically.
“He was the one with his finger on the nuclear button,” prosecutors argued during the trial.
Three co-defendants—including Perdriau’s former chief of staff and another deputy—also received prison sentences for helping to set up the scheme.
Perdriau has vowed to appeal the ruling, maintaining that he played no role in the plot.
However, the case took a dramatic turn when Artigues produced a secret 2017 recording in which Perdriau can be heard claiming to have a USB drive containing compromising images and threatening to make them public.
Artigues testified that the intimidation left him effectively powerless in city hall: “I was like a puppet,” he told the court. “They put me there, and I smiled.”
The former deputy, who said the ordeal drove him to suicidal thoughts, welcomed the court’s decision.
“Today, I think I will be able to rebuild my life,” he said, standing alongside his family.
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