Levallois-Perret, May 7, 2023 — infopulsetoday.com — Patrick Balkany, the long-serving mayor of Levallois-Perret, is back behind bars. The 76-year-old conservative politician, a fixture in French local politics for decades, was jailed again this week to serve the remainder of a tax-fraud sentence. He had been under house arrest with an electronic bracelet after just five months in prison, but that arrangement is over.
Balkany’s fall from power has been years in the making. It traces back to 2013, when authorities began investigating the former mayor and his wife, Isabelle, over their financial affairs.
The couple was accused of making false declarations about their assets and laundering the proceeds of tax fraud. The case dragged on for six years before a court finally handed down a three-year prison sentence in 2019. That sentence was for tax fraud.
Balkany initially served time at La Santé prison in Paris. Then health problems got him out early, swapped for an electronic bracelet.
Now the bracelet is gone and he is in a cell again. The man who built Levallois-Perret into a wealthy Paris suburb now sits in prison. He ran the town for 31 years — from 1983 to 1995, and again from 2001 until 2020.
That is a long grip on one place. During those years, he also served multiple terms as a national deputy for the Hauts-de-Seine department, representing the 5th circonscription that includes Clichy and Levallois-Perret. He was a regional councilor too, from 1982 to 1988.
Balkany was a member of the Gaullist RPR, then the UMP, then Les Républicains. He was a party man, a machine politician.
His career started in Neuilly-sur-Seine, where he was born in August 1948. But the controversies are not new. In 1997, he was convicted for illegal taking of interests.
That got him a two-year ban from holding office. It did not stop him.
He came back. He kept winning elections. Levallois kept voting for him.
The current case is different. It involves his wife, Isabelle, who served as his first deputy mayor. The couple together faced accusations that they hid assets and laundered money from tax evasion.
The investigation began under former president François Hollande’s administration. It continued through Macron’s first term.
The media followed every twist. Balkany’s jailing is not just about one man’s legal troubles. It is a symbol of how French courts have begun to hold local power brokers accountable.
For years, mayors in France operated with near-impunity. They controlled budgets, awarded contracts, built networks.
Balkany was a master of that system. He turned Levallois-Perret into a showcase of urban renewal. He also turned it into a fiefdom.
Now the fiefdom is without its lord. The town has a new mayor. Balkany’s name remains on the buildings he built, the projects he pushed through.
But he is in prison, not in city hall. The case has been a long, slow burn.
From 2013 to 2019, from investigation to conviction. From La Santé to an electronic bracelet, and now back to a cell. Each step has been covered by French media, analyzed by political commentators.
The public has watched a once-powerful man lose everything. Balkany is 76.
His health is poor. That is why he got the bracelet in the first place. But the court decided the bracelet was not enough.
He had to go back inside. The affair has also tainted his wife. Isabelle Balkany was his closest political ally.
She ran the town when he was in Paris. She stood by him during the trial.
Now she faces her own legal troubles. For French politics, the Balkany case is a cautionary tale. It shows that no matter how long you hold power, the law can still catch up.
It shows that health problems may delay justice but do not stop it. And it shows that the old system of local barons, untouchable in their towns, is finally being dismantled.
Patrick Balkany is back in prison. The man who ran Levallois-Perret for three decades will have time to think about how it all ended.
