Intimate video scandal: pro-Armenian French mayor sentenced to jail

The Lyon Correctional Court found Saint-Etienne Mayor Gaël Perdriau guilty in a case of blackmail involving an intimate video. 

The prosecution had previously requested a five-year prison sentence, including three years behind bars, as well as the immediate imposition of a ban on holding elected office, Caliber.Az reports, citing French media.

On December 1, 2025, 53-year-old Gaël Perdriau, a former member of the Republican Party, was found guilty and sentenced to four years in prison and five years of disqualification from holding elected positions. The court’s decision came two months after the trial concluded regarding the blackmail of his political rival, former first deputy mayor Gilles Artigues.

Artigues, a Catholic with centrist beliefs and an opponent of same-sex marriage, was secretly filmed in January 2015 with an escort in a hotel room in Paris. According to the investigation, he was thereafter forced to “keep a low profile” and not challenge the leadership’s stance.

When delivering the verdict, the presiding judge stated: “The court finds you guilty on all counts brought against you.” Three other individuals involved in the case were also convicted.

Throughout the trial, Perdriau denied any involvement. However, the court had at its disposal numerous testimonies, including confessions from his former chief of staff, Pierre Gauttieri. Gauttieri stated that immediately after Perdriau ’s election in 2014, he was instructed to “find a way to keep Gilles Artigues under control,” as Perdriau doubted Artigues’s political loyalty.

The idea of compromising Artigues using an escort arose during discussions with Deputy Mayor for Education Samy Kéfi-Jérôme and his husband Gilles Rossary-Lenglet. All three — Pierre Gauttieri, Gilles Rossary-Lenglet, and Samy Kéfi-Jérôme — were also found guilty by the court.

Caliber.Az notes that in 2018, Saint-Etienne Mayor Gaël Perdriau was added to Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry “blacklist” for illegally visiting territories of the country that were then occupied by Armenia.