Former mayor of Toulon, Hubert Falco, sentenced to five years of ineligibility on appeal

A potential end to his political career. The former strongman of Var politics, Hubert Falco, 76, was sentenced on appeal Tuesday, May 14 by the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal to 18 months in prison and five years in prison. ineligibility for concealment of embezzlement of public funds. He was prosecuted for having continued to eat lunch for free for years in the cafeteria of the Var departmental council, even though he had no longer been president since 2002.

In April 2023, the first instance decision of the Marseille criminal court had the effect of a bomb in Toulon. Hubert Falco, mayor and president of the Toulon metropolis for more than twenty years, who won the city from the far right in 2001, was sentenced to three years’ suspended imprisonment for concealment of embezzlement of public funds. And, above all, to a five-year ineligibility sentence, with provisional execution. The elected official was therefore immediately dismissed from all his mandates, without waiting for the second trial, after the appeal which he had immediately lodged.

Tuesday’s Mortgage Decision Hubert Falco’s chances of running for the 2026 municipal elections in Toulon. His lawyer, Thierry Fradet, nevertheless announced an appeal to the Court of Cassation. “This appeal (…) should last around a year, so we will be definitively settled at the end of this appeal on which we have great hope”did he declare.