FRANCEINFO SURVEY. Le Barcarès, its beaches, its casino … and its mayor indicted for extortion

Alain Ferrand, 62, is a character who seems to come out of a film whose dialogues would have been written by Michel Audiard. Affable, energetic, he uses words sometimes to seduce, sometimes to attack. Of medium height, his broad shoulders and his good-looking physique give him a sympathetic air. But man, who does not tolerate contradiction, can also quickly raise his voice.

Former professor of management in a hotel school in the Toulouse region, nothing seemed to predestinate him to become a manager of casinos, nightclubs, restaurants, or even luxury hotels in Africa. However, in 1987, he bought the Lydia, a boat stranded on one of the beaches of Barcarès (Eastern Pyrenees), and turns it into a casino. In the process, he opened a restaurant and a nightclub, still at Barcarès. He did not stop there, since he founded, with Francis Perez, a holding company, Grand-Sud, and bought a series of casinos in the south-east of France.

Influential businessman, Alain Ferrand made his political debut in 1991 as a municipal councilor for Barcarès. Four years later, he became mayor. His career will then experience ups and downs. He must leave the mayor’s chair to his wife, Joëlle, depending on his ineligibility. And when she herself is doomed, he takes his place again. A game of musical chairs that does not seem to displease the voters, since they renewed him at the head of the town hall from the first round in 2020, with nearly 65% ​​of the votes …

His first run-ins with the law, Alain Ferrand owes them to his activities in casinos. At the beginning of the 1990s, the Grand-Sud holding company appeared in a parliamentary report which looked at money laundering in gambling establishments. Parliamentarians reportedly spotted “suspicious capital movements within a holding company which controls casinos in Languedoc-Roussillon”. In 1992, the games and races section of the General Information of the time called on Alain Ferrand and Francis Perez. They are suspected of making financial cavalry between gambling establishments in the south of France and the Jura. They spend a few days in the Dijon remand center. Then the Court of Cassation condemned Alain Ferrand definitively in 1999. He was scooped for abuse of corporate assets and concealment of this offense a three-year suspended prison sentence, a ban on running gaming establishments and three years of ineligibility.

In 1998, he had already spent twenty-four days in prison in the context of another case, this time of illegal taking of interest to the detriment of a mixed economy company (SEM) of Barcarès. Mandated by the board of directors, he had placed ten million francs (1,525,000 euros) in an interest account, which could have brought him 100,000 francs (a little over 15,000 euros).

His judicial CV could have stopped there, but in May 2021, he was indicted in the context of another case: the justice suspects him of organized gang extortion, concussion, undue tax collection. and aiding and abetting documents. For several years now, Alain Ferrand has been asking campground managers to contribute to the cost of redeveloping the road passing in front of their house. Problem: in theory, the road network is the responsibility of the urban community of Perpignan. The municipality is therefore not supposed to invest in this work. The mayor would also have asked restaurant owners to rent a specific model of parasol, and exclusively at the town hall. A few holdouts opposed it. The lawyer for several bars and campsites, Sylvain Donnève, says that they were then the victims of pressure: “It can be the fact of sending municipal police officers regularly to come and revive the managers, and threaten them by telling them, for example, that such and such a restaurant will not benefit from its terrace rights.” A municipal official seems to support this thesis. Referring to his action with traders, Philippe Rivière, municipal police officer in the seaside resort, affirms: “We were going to harass them. We were going to punish them because their terrace protruded by a table or two. It was all day, constantly. We were only serving that.”

As part of this investigation, Alain Ferrand was placed under judicial supervision. He can only go to the town hall and his department on Tuesdays and Fridays. And he must leave the Pyrénées-Orientales department at 7 p.m. But when it was wiretapped, the Marseille police discovered the existence of a ploy that allowed him to be alerted to police visits. According to a report of a decision of the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal, the town hall secretary sent him a coded message: “When she said, in conversation, ” the squirrel is in the tree ”, it was a code to warn the mayor of the presence of the police authorities”, can we read. In the same document, we learn that Alain Ferrand would have violated his judicial control, at least once.

For several years, the beginning of July has been synonymous with electronic music at Barcarès. The three-day festival, called Electrobeach, has become the most important in France in this musical style. It is organized via a semi-public company (SEM): Event Made In France (EMF). Problem: according to the regional chamber of accounts, the Electrobeach is organized “without legal basis”. Because tourist animation is the responsibility of the urban community of Perpignan, and not of the municipality. The magistrates also note that the festival “Served the private interests of two companies, one of which belongs to the mayor”. The Electrobeach is located a stone’s throw from the Le Marina nightclub and the Les Voiles blancs restaurant, part of the same Le First Burger company, a company of Alain Ferrand. For Didier Melmoux, of the Anticor association, there would be a mixture of genres. “The events on the sidelines of the Electrobeach are organized according to conventions binding the SEM, the town hall of Barcarès and a service provider, which provide for activities within the mayor’s establishment, notes the Anticor coordinator. All the festival-goers pass in front of his nightclub, so that generates entries and consumptions. “

Another embarrassing testimony, that of a man who, while working for a festival partner, and therefore theoretically on behalf of the SEM, organized special evenings called Pool Party DJ Mag, within the mayor’s nightclub. , during the festival. When justice began to take an interest in it, this witness wrote a letter, sent to the Perpignan prosecutor: “In 2018, Mr. Ferrand took me by force to the town hall because he told me that he had to put in place a stratagem to justify the organization of our ” Pool Party ‘, he explains. He forcibly detained me in town hall for over six hours. I was forced to write an agreement clearing him of any involvement in the organization of ‘Pool parties’. It was the condition for him to let me leave the town hall. ” Alain Ferrand, whom we have joined, refutes this story and considers this testimony to be a lie.

Another point of interest to investigators: the accounting of the mixed economy company EMF. The regional chamber of accounts records unexplained expenses such as trips abroad, especially to Las Vegas, or to Santa Monica in the United States. His observations stop in 2018. But, in the accounts for 2020 and 2021, which the Investigation Unit of Radio France was able to consult, many expenses still appear, while the festival did not take place because of the crisis. sanitary. For example, the SEM placed an order of 30,000 euros in 2020 from a drinks wholesaler, then 130,000 euros the following year, again in the absence of a festival. Orders that intrigued Didier Melmoux, from the Anticor association: “We realize that the SEM buys drinks, but we do not know for whom, or where it is going.”

Cash movements also question. In 2020, the first year without Electrobeach, nearly 50,000 euros went out of the SEM’s accounts, while 64,000 euros went into it. In 2021, the same movements appear. Where does this money come from? Mystery. For Alain Ferrand, there is no problem, he told us, assuring that“no species had circulated”. To this is added another investigation conducted by the gendarmes of the research section of Montpellier. They wonder if some calls for tenders made as part of the town’s Christmas market in 2017 were not irregular.

Other grievances are not investigated, but also raise questions. Some site managers claim that the municipality would require companies to start work without payment of a deposit, contrary to custom. Stéphanie, a business manager whose name we have changed, says she received an unusual visit one evening: “The mayor explained to us that we still had to start the work. Otherwise, he made us understand that he would send us his team: henchmen. When they arrived in front of our home, it was impressive., remembers the business manager. There were several of them, two of them hidden, as if they were ready for the assault. The next day we had to go back to work. “ Facts, again, that the mayor denies and from which he claims to be a stranger. Alain Ferrand also told us that we had to “stop destroying your action” because it is “a builder”. He did not want to tell us more about the substance, but in an interview conducted by a local web TV on June 11, 2021, TV Cat.fr, he explained: “Today, I am accused of relatively serious facts, but without objective reason and without being able to qualify this kind of accusation. The violence with which I was treated, humanly, it is very difficult and painful.”