Brigitte Barèges will therefore be able to become mayor of Montauban (Tarn-et-Garonne) again. The elected Les Républicains was released this Tuesday, December 14 by the Toulouse Court of Appeal. At first instance, on February 9, Brigitte Barèges was sentenced to five years of ineligibility, which forced her to leave the seat of mayor to her first deputy, Axel de Labriolle. Thierry Deville then took over the presidency of the Greater Montauban urban community.
Also sentenced to a 12-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of 15,000 euros, Brigitte Barèges had been found guilty at first instance of having used the means of the town hall of Montauban, during the campaign for the municipal elections of 2014, to elect. He had been accused of having, in particular, paid a city agent to write glowing articles about his action in The small newspaper, the competitor of The Midi Dispatch. During the first trial, the president of the court considered that Brigitte Barèges was “very strongly involved in the writing of articles“.
Pending the appeal trial, Brigitte Barèges and her supporters had orchestrated a demonstration in the streets of Montauban on February 13, to denounce the court decision. It brought together 900 people.
back to business
Today, the chosen one is therefore relaxed. “It’s a great relief for Brigitte Barèges and for myself.” said his lawyer Me Laurent de Caunes. “It was a human as well as a legal fight which is resolved as it should have been treated from the beginning. The meaning of this judgment of the Court of Appeal is extremely clear: Brigitte Barèges is not guilty of what she was accused of. Legally, it is considered that the offense is not constituted“.
This case, which has pursued me for seven years, is pschitt. It is a political affair initiated by my socialist adversaries, Valérie Rabault, Roland Garrigues, Claude Mouchard
Brigitte Barèges immediately reacted in a video broadcast on her page Facebook. The mayor of Montauban took the opportunity to charge her political opponents, especially during the municipal elections of Montauban in 2014. Brigitte Barèges also held a press conference at the Town Hall of Montauban this Tuesday evening. His supporters, agents and residents, were invited to an aperitif. The ceremony had been prepared, a huge key was symbolically given to him by Axel de Labriolle, who acted for 10 months.
I had a very bad experience of this purgatory, this forced unemployment. My accounts were frozen, I no longer had a penny to pay for the hairdresser.
The acting mayor, the president of the agglomeration of Grand Montauban and the president of the household waste union have resigned from their functions with the prefecture. Brigitte Barèges could regain her seat as mayor during a municipal council around December 20.
Reaction of the PRG President of the Department
This court decision also generated the unexpected reaction of Michel Weill, the president of the Departmental Council of Tarn-et-Garonne. Yet opponents on the political level (he is radical on the left, close to Jean-Michel Baylet, while she is on the right), the elected official declares in a press release about Brigitte Barèges: “I imagine his satisfaction and his relief“.
Michel Weill indicates that he wants to continue “to work (…) so that relations with the City of Montauban and Greater Montauban are most fruitful in the interest of all our fellow citizens and all of Tarn-et-Garonne“.
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