a “slum merchant” in court for having rented around a hundred unsanitary accommodations to undocumented immigrants

“How I became a multi-millionaire” : this is the title of a sort of manual written by the defendant on his computer. Gérard Gallas, 50 years old, presents himself there in “exceptional businessman” and praises his real estate strategy: buy large apartments, divide them, and rent them more expensively.

His trial opens Monday, November 13 before the criminal court, and it is a case emblematic of the scourge of substandard housing in France’s second city. In Marseille, this slumlord, owner of four unsanitary buildings, rented 122 homes in poor condition to vulnerable people.

A former police officer and a henchman to recover rents in cash

In one of its buildings, in the heart of one of the poorest districts of Marseille, six apartments are divided into around twenty housing units. A 6m² is, for example, rented for 300 euros. No heating, leaks, rats, cockroaches describe the tenants, who are, for the most part, undocumented or asylum seekers.

In police custody, Gérard Gallas says he is unaware of their situations. However, he knows this audience well having been a police officer in an administrative detention center.. The defendant then moved into real estate to become a millionaire. “It scares us even more”confided one of the tenants to investigators.

The tenants also say that a henchman came to collect the rent, with payments in cash or on a bank terminal so that asylum seekers could pay with their card from the French immigration office. Gérard Gallas and his henchman risk up to 10 years in prison.