Former mayor of Normandy village acquitted of drug trafficking

Lina Portman3 days ago

0 1 minute read

The Bobigny criminal court acquitted Mélanie Boulanger, former socialist mayor of Canteleu, in Normandy, of complicity in drug trafficking.

Although the Bobigny court noted a “weakening of ethical guarantees” on the part of the 47-year-old socialist elected official – who had a relationship with her deputy who was close to drug traffickers – it did not consider that there was in this case “a positive act” that could be qualified as complicity.

The former socialist mayor, who resigned in February from the position she had held since 2014, has maintained her innocence since being detained in October 2021.

She has repeatedly denied any involvement in the affairs of the Meziani clan, a family that controls drug trafficking in her town near Rouen with an iron fist.

At the end of June, the Bobigny public prosecutor's office requested a one-year suspended prison sentence against him, as well as five years of ineligibility and a fine of 10,000 euros.

'A pact of non-agression'

According to the prosecutor, the mayor's transmission of certain sensitive information to traffickers under duress, as well as some of her relationships with the local police, amounted to “a pact of non-agression” with the traffickers.

On the other hand, the court sentenced his deputy Hasbi Colak to a one-year suspended prison sentence for having lent his car to dealers carrying out a cocaine transaction in Seine-Saint-Denis, in order to “punish breaches of integrity by an elected official”.