A candidate for the legislative elections in Vaucluse spent 24 years in prison. Germain Gaiffe, nicknamed “the skinner of Montauban” was sentenced for the sordid murder of a businessman in Tarn-et-Garonne in 1997. The candidate assumes this past in the face of voters.
Here is a legislative candidate who does not have the CV of any other candidate. Germain Gaiffe, candidate in the second constituency of Vaucluse, is a former murderer. Nicknamed “the skinner of Montauban”, he had been convicted of the murder of businessman André Dursus in Montauban in December 1997. His two legs had been found in the Garonne in Toulouse and Fenouillet in January 1998 and the trunk decapitated a year later in the Tarn river at Moissac.
“No one but me is more legitimate to be the representative of the people”.
A past that Germain Gaiffe assumes entirely in Provence. Now 55, he is aware that voters can be moved or frightened by his candidacy. “People have the right to resent me. They have the right not to understand. But no one but me is more legitimate to be the representative of the people because I took 30 years on behalf of of the people, he explains to our Provençal colleagues. Today, when I am incriminated, I don’t care and in fact, this criminal record allows me to be free to denounce the system. it may seem, my candidacy is more serious than the badly played show given by the elected officials, despite the budget they have”.
25 years of criminal imprisonment, 30 years on appeal
Germain Gaiffe, then aged 36, was tried for murder, theft and forcible confinement and sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment in Montauban in February 2003. Judged on appeal nine months later in Toulouse, he was sentenced to 30 years’ imprisonment criminal with a 20-year prison term. His father, Louis Gaiffe, tried for complicity in forcible confinement had been sentenced to 6 years in prison then to 10 years in prison on appeal.
Germain Gaiffe and Bernard Castelli during their poces in Montauban, on February 19, 2003.
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What had happened? The victim André Dursus was in business with Louis Gaiffe, the father of Germain, an insurance agent. The second blamed the first for the poor results of their common society. Louis Gaiffe then instructed his son Germain Gaiffe and another man, the Nice mobster Bernard Castelli, to go and hold André Dursus to account.
During the trial, the two defendants explained that André Dursus had been the victim of an “accidental fall” in his apartment. In a panic, the defendants had thrown his entire body into the Garonne. During the hearings, Germain Gaiffe had always denied having cut up the body. For his only explanation, he had put forward the trail of a boat’s propeller.
Once definitively sentenced, the Gaiffes father and son had regularly summoned police officers and magistrates to court, accusing them of having fabricated evidence in their trials.
Married to a serial killer
Germain Gaiffe was imprisoned in Fresnes prison in the Paris region. Behind bars, he meets serial killer Alfredo Stranieri. The man is nicknamed “the classifieds killer”. He recruited his future victims by pretending to be a buyer of houses or cars before making his victims disappear and appropriating their property.
Alfredo Stranieri killed three people in Viry-Chatillon in Essonne and two in Bez-de-Naussac in Aveyron. It was precisely in Aveyron that he was arrested by the Capdenac gendarmes in July 1999. Four years later, he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Behind bars, Germain Gaiffe married Alfredo Stranieri. The witnesses of their marriage were the ex-comedian Dieudonné and the terrorist Carlos at the Poissy remand center in the Yvelines in 2013.
It is also from prison that Germain Gaiffe had claimed the paternity of the child of … Rachida Dati, the former Keeper of the Seals. “It was to sincerely annoy Dati about the harm she did on reintegration, no more,” he confesses today. He was sentenced to 4 months in prison.
Cleaner and Candidate
Once released from prison in 2021, Germain Gaiffe, who is from Amiens, set sail for Vaucluse, a region he loves. A friend found him a job as a cleaner. He made himself available to carry out his electoral campaign. A candidate without a label, he is supported by several parties such as the Sovereign People, the Quidams Party or the National Liberation Council.
Germain Gaiffe shows his campaign poster.
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Germain Gaiffe’s ambition: to give voice to citizens. “It’s people who know nothing about anything who impose rules on us. For me, they don’t listen to anyone and in addition this elite which only works through the ‘lodges’ considers us as turds. The political leaders represent 1% and say they want to govern for the other 99%. No. The abolition of political parties would give citizens back their expression,” he told Provence.
If he is elected deputy, Germain Gaiffe will file a first bill to prevent any candidate with a criminal record from standing for election. A total of twelve candidates are running for the second constituency of Vaucluse.
Why is he allowed to run?
Until 1994, the perpetrators of crimes were deprived of their civic, civil and family rights throughout their lives. The new penal code entered into force on 1 March 1994 changed the rule. The prohibition of civil rights is no longer automatic. It cannot exceed ten years in the event of conviction for a crime. Germain Gaiffe explains to Provence “As long as you are not subject to an enforceable and pending ineligibility decision, you can present yourself. I have always had my civic rights and I have always voted, even in jail”.
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