After the intimate video blackmail affair, another thorny and very technical file arrived on the table of the municipality of Saint-Etienne on Monday. According to France Info, Gaël Perdriau is suspected of having favored a company, without respecting the tender procedurewithin the framework of the cultural policy of the city and Senior Leisure Pass.
Serge Lama and the “Greatest cabaret in the world”
These Pass Loisirs Seniors consist of offering cultural outings with preferential rates to residents of Saint-Etienne over the age of 62. This operation was requested by the municipality as part of two contracts in 2020/2021 at the Zénith de Saint-Etienne: a concert by Serge Lama and a performance of the “Greatest cabaret in the world”, a show created by host Patrick Sébastien. Both events were produced by the company “C’Kel Prod”.
As part of the Pass Loisirs Seniors, the town hall bought 700 seats for the production of Serge Lama at the Zénith and 900 for that of the “Greatest cabaret in the world”. According to our colleagues from France Info, a call for tenders should have taken place to choose the organizing company for these two events, which was not the case.
Our colleagues from France Info also report that two different deliberations took place in the municipal council for the same company, the market was therefore split. As for Patrick Sébastien’s show, the Zénith was able to accommodate up to 900 people with a budget of 41,964 euros excluding taxes. However, the public order code specifies that “the procedure exemption threshold for all code buyers is 40,000 euros excluding tax. Below this threshold, buyers can thus award a public contract without prior advertising or competitive bidding..”
The town hall says that a call for tenders was not compulsory
For its part, the municipality insists that this information is not correct “in an extremely tense political context“. Marc Chassaubéné, vice-president of Saint-Étienne Métropole and deputy for culture at the municipality of Saint-Étienne wishes to rectify the situation by referring to Article R2122-3 of the public code“this article allows the buyer to make a contract without advertising or competition for an object whose creation or acquisition of a work or an artistic performance is unique“, specifies Marc Chassaubéné.
“These shows are not organized by the city of Saint-Etienneadds the chosen one. And we choose them for a given artist. So in the end, it is the producer who has the exclusivity of this artist who enters into the framework of a negotiated market and not of a call for competition as may be the case for performances which are not artistic and for which there might be competition.”
A very “complex” file
Maître Pierric Salen, a lawyer with a doctorate in public law, brings a nuance to this interpretation of the public code. “Regarding the purchase of these places, it is indeed a public market. On this there is no debate.”
But for the competition, Mr. Salen, indicates that it is not necessarily compulsory in this case and that a judgment of the Council of State could open the way to a case law. The lawyer refers to a case dating from 2013 where the Rhône departmental council bought order forms for subscriptions, places and passes allowing to attend Olympique Lyonnais matches without a call for tenders. “The Council of State in this case argued that basically there was only one distributor to sell these places, Olympique Lyonnais, so no need for competition“, reports Master Salen.
“If we transpose with the file of the town hall of Saint-Etienne, there are several potential resellers of tickets for these shows but basically, these resellers bought these tickets from the same distributor which is the Zenith of Saint-Etienne. So the town hall could get away with this argument.”
Maître Pierric Salen acknowledges that this is a very “complex“of which only a judge could have the final word and the fair appreciation of the public code. This new case comes as a very tense day took place at the town hall of Saint-Etienne. Several demonstrations took place on the forecourt on the occasion of the first city council after the revelations of the blackmail to the intimate video.