Isabelle Balkany was tried for defamation and insults, but the complaint filed by the mayor of Levallois-Perret Agnès Pottier-Dumas was deemed inadmissible. The wife of former councilor Patrick Balkany was therefore acquitted this Tuesday.
Isabelle Balkany, wife of the former mayor of Levallois (Hauts-de-Seine) Patrick Balkany, who was tried in July for defamation and insults towards her husband’s successor, was acquitted on Tuesday by the Nanterre criminal court.
The complaint had been filed in the name of the town hall and not in that of the mayor, Agnès Pottier-Dumas, which “makes the action brought inadmissible”, the court justified.
Accusations posted on Facebook
“This decision is a real procedural snub for the City Hall, and a legal victory for Isabelle Balkany as well as for freedom of expression,” Ms Balkany’s lawyer, Robin Binsard, told AFP.
“The city takes note of the court’s decision,” said Ms. Pottier-Dumas’ lawyer, Michaël Goupil.
In October 2021 on her Facebook account, Ms Balkany accused the municipal team of “dozing off” in the face of drug trafficking, denounced “characterized harassment” within the town hall, suggested that the municipality knowingly left the lighting in the town hall out of order and claimed that elected officials from Levallois had taken advantage of a pleasure trip at the taxpayer’s expense.
Elected officials described as “incompetent idiots”
The former first deputy mayor of Levallois, aged 76, was also prosecuted for having described municipal elected officials as “incompetent idiots (sic) who are all in love with themselves”.
Comments which “reek of bitterness and personal animosity,” Mr. Goupil said during the hearing.
Convicted in 2020 for laundering tax fraud, the Balkany couple were found guilty of having concealed, between 2007 and 2014, some 13 million euros in assets from the tax authorities.
Isabelle Balkany was sentenced to three years in prison in this case, but was not incarcerated due to her state of health. Patrick Balkany spent several months in detention in connection with this case.
