Patrick Balkany makes a surprise appearance in an Arno Santamaria music video

Patrick Balkany is often where you least expect him. On Sunday, the former LR mayor of Levallois-Perret appeared in a video by Arno Santamaria published for his new single It's not tomorrow the day before, released a few weeks earlier. For one, it is an opportunity to make people talk about him before a hypothetical political return that he hopes for in 2026 despite his convictions. For the other, the opportunity to talk about his upcoming album at a lower cost.

The collaboration comes down to fifteen seconds in front of the camera and one line. In the clip, the 75-year-old man comes to play the “mediators” between good and evil. Two states of mind embodied by one and the same person, Arno Santamaria. After a minute spent watching the two versions of the singer arguing, Patrick Balkany enters. Dressed in a long black coat and a large hat, he walks forward, cane in hand, before speaking. “Hello gentlemen, so you’re not going to fight! Do you believe life is white or black? Make no mistake, life is black and white,” says the character who looks like a mafia godfather.

Also read: Is the sentence of the Balkany couple severe?

“In this clip, I wanted a strong character to referee the fight between good and evil and I thought of Patrick, because there aren't many like that anymore,” the singer argues to Le Parisien. He is divisive but he has a background, charisma and energy.

Found guilty of having, with his wife and former first deputy Isabelle Balkany, concealed some 13 million euros in assets from the tax authorities between 2007 and 2014, Patrick Balkany was sentenced to five years' imprisonment for laundering tax fraud. (reduced to four and a half years), as well as a 100,000 euro fine and 10 years of ineligibility.

The former mayor of Levallois-Perret and deputy for Hauts-de-Seine is still being prosecuted in several other cases. In the so-called “drivers”, he was indicted in July 2020 for “embezzlement of public property or funds by a person holding public authority”. He has also been prosecuted since February 2021 for “misuse of corporate assets”, “illegal taking of interests” and “embezzlement of public funds”, suspected of having fraudulently used a building belonging to the city of Levallois. He was also interviewed in 2023 as part of an investigation opened in 2016 for concealment of embezzlement of public funds then for embezzlement of public funds and illegal taking of interests, concerns the situation of an advisor to the former councilor .

With this brief appearance in a clip, the habitual offender intends to prepare a hypothetical return to the political arena, although he cannot run himself in the municipal elections of 2026. “I am preparing the next municipal elections, I am going up a list to fire those who are there, he explained to Le Parisien. Rest assured, I am 75 years old, I am not going to start a political career again, I have been sentenced to ten years of ineligibility.”