“The appeal of the prosecution is suspensive until the chamber for the application of sentences of the Paris Court of Appeal rules, within the maximum period of two months”, specified the prosecutor of Evry Caroline Nisand in a statement.

Until this new decision, Patrick Balkany remains imprisoned in Fleury-Mérogis prison (Essonne).

Earlier in the day, the Evry sentence enforcement court had granted this conditional release, without an electronic bracelet.

The prosecution considers that Mr. Balkany “always manifests his opposition to the principle of his conviction, despite its final nature, which does not bode well for compliance with the requested sentence adjustment measure”.

According to the prosecutor of Evry, the former elected LR “only justifies, at most, the payment of a total sum of approximately 7,000 euros, since February 2022, while the tax debt for which he is responsible for repairing s amounted to more than four million euros”.

“The prosecution would never have appealed against another detainee, it is judicial harassment against Mr. Balkany, against all forms of logic, reason and law”, commented Mr. Balkany’s lawyers, Mes Robin Binsard and Romain Dieudonne

“This decision (of the sentencing chamber) is irreproachable in law, because nothing justifies the continued detention of a 73-year-old man who has already served two-thirds of his sentence,” said the lawyers.

The former mayor of Levallois-Perret (Hauts-de-Seine) was imprisoned on February 7. After spending five months in detention for tax evasion, then being released on an electronic bracelet for health reasons, he returned to prison due to numerous breaches of his obligations, according to justice.

– Retry in October –

The sentence enforcement court had justified its decision, under appeal, by stressing that “the acknowledgment of the facts by the person concerned, the severity of the sanction imposed, including with regard to his wife, the consequences of the offenses committed and their punishment, the length of incarceration, his age and his state of health, suggest an extremely low risk of recidivism”.

“He clearly became aware of his shortcomings during the previous sentence adjustment measure, shortcomings sanctioned by a new incarceration which was difficult to bear,” said the court in the decision consulted by AFP.

In addition, the judge considered that Mr. Balkany had “put in place, together with his wife, since February, monthly payments totaling 1,300 euros for the purpose of settling the sums due to the tax administration for the offenses committed”.

The placement under electronic bracelet of his wife Isabelle, still hospitalized since her suicide attempt in February, had also been revoked in February.

The Balkany spouses had been found guilty of not having paid wealth tax between 2010 and 2015 and of having paid a grossly undervalued income tax between 2009 and 2014, for an estimated total of 4 million euros. euros of sums evaded.

A few weeks after his imprisonment, in early April, the former LR mayor of Levallois-Perret (Hauts-de-Seine) filed a request for parole.

The end of Patrick Balkany’s sentence is set for April 21, 2023. Since February, he has served half of his sentence and will have served two-thirds of his sentence from July 3.

With his wife, they must be retried in October in the tax evasion money laundering case with the sole issue of the quantum of their sentences, after a decision of the Court of Cassation, because already found definitively guilty of this offense.

Patrick Balkany remains indicted in Nanterre in various cases, in particular for “embezzlement of public funds”, suspected of having used drivers from the town hall of Levallois for personal purposes.