Steeve Briois

In March 2026, Marine Tondelier announced that she would file a complaint for public insults against Steeve Briois over remarks made at a municipal council meeting in November 2025, during which he notably called her a 'hysterical Taliban' and a 'green Khmer' and made a comparison with Stalin.

State of the evidence

Documented

Attribution

Personally implicated

In 2026, Steeve Briois dismissed two municipal employees who were members of the SUD trade union, after suspending them without pay, despite an unfavourable opinion from the disciplinary board. The employees brought proceedings before the administrative court, and their lawyer denounced trade union discrimination.

State of the evidence

Documented

Attribution

Direct responsibility

Steeve Briois and two other former FN officials were prosecuted in 2024 for incitement to racial hatred over a practical guide for FN elected representatives distributed in 2013, notably promoting 'national preference'. The court acquitted them in September 2024.

Course of the proceedings

1. Formally charged — Formal charge before the current outcome

Steeve Briois brought several legal actions against author Octave Nitkowski and his publisher over passages in a 2013 book concerning his private life and its alleged connection with the political development of the Front national. The courts issued successive and conflicting decisions on the balance between privacy and debate on matters of public interest. In July 2018, the Court of Cassation overturned the conviction handed down against the author in 2017 and ordered a retrial.

State of the evidence

Documented

The Prosecutor General at the Douai Court of Appeal requested that Steeve Briois's parliamentary immunity be lifted in proceedings concerning allegedly insulting comments posted by internet users in response to a text he published on Facebook on 23 December 2015, which were reportedly not removed promptly. The European Parliament lifted his immunity in 2018.

State of the evidence

Documented

The Christmas nativity scene installed at Hénin-Beaumont town hall under Steeve Briois's authority was ruled unlawful under the principle of neutrality of public authorities. The Administrative Court of Appeal upheld the unlawfulness of the installation in 2017.

State of the evidence

Documented

Attribution

Direct responsibility

Steeve Briois launched the association 'Ma commune sans migrants' and secured the adoption in Hénin-Beaumont of a motion opposing the reception of migrants. The initiative was criticised as stigmatising, particularly as no reception centre project had then been announced in the department.

State of the evidence

Documented

Attribution

Political responsibility

Secours populaire denounced its exclusion from the Hénin-Beaumont Christmas market and viewed it as a political measure by Steeve Briois's municipality. The episode contributed to a broader public conflict between the RN municipal leadership and local associations.

State of the evidence

Documented

Attribution

Direct responsibility

Following Steeve Briois's election in Hénin-Beaumont, the municipality withdrew the grant awarded to the local branch of the Ligue des droits de l'Homme and asked it to vacate municipal premises. The decision was denounced as an act of political retaliation.

State of the evidence

Documented

Attribution

Direct responsibility

The first anti-begging order signed by Steeve Briois in Hénin-Beaumont was suspended in urgent proceedings on 21 July 2014 by the Lille administrative court, following an application by the Ligue des droits de l'Homme. Critics considered that the measure particularly targeted Roma populations and criminalised poverty.

State of the evidence

Documented

Attribution

Direct responsibility