Reconquest senator Stéphane Ravier receives six months suspended prison sentence

Reconquest senator of Bouches-du-Rhône Stéphane Ravier was sentenced for “illegal taking of interest” to six months suspended prison sentence and one year of ineligibility, Wednesday May 29, by the Marseille criminal court. He was prosecuted for having hired, in 2015, his son Thomas in the green spaces department of the 7th sector of Marseille, where he was elected mayor. Stéphane Ravier gave up his chair in 2017 to his niece, due to multiple mandates, after his election to the Luxembourg Palace. Thomas Ravier was sentenced to a fine of 10,000 euros, including 5,000 euros suspended, and to one year of ineligibility, also without provisional execution.

Absent at the deliberations on Wednesday morning, the elected official announced via his lawyer that he was appealing this decision. This one “is not based on a strictly legal level and the offenses alleged against my client are not characterized”, estimated the elected official’s lawyer, Julien Pinelli. This ineligibility, even if confirmed on appeal, would not prevent the elected official from Eric Zemmour’s party from running in the municipal elections in Marseille in 2026, as he did during the 2014 and 2020 municipal elections.

At the hearing in mid-April, Stéphane Ravier refuted all the accusations, ensuring that “Sector town halls do not have the power to hire anyone”. According to him, he only “let it be known” to his son that there was “regular recruitment at Marseille town hall, and it stops there”. After what, “there will be no more intervention on my part”he said. “There is absolutely nothing normal about obtaining public employment through private intervention”had replied the prosecutor Mathieu.