Liberty, equality, but not impunity

 

 

THE conviction of Jacques Chirac has stunned even the political opponents of the former president of France. This morning a Paris court found Mr Chirac guilty of the misuse of public funds during his time as mayor of Paris in the 1990s, and handed him a two-year suspended prison sentence. He is the first former president under the Fifth Republic to have been tried, let alone convicted, in a criminal court.

The case concerns what is known as the "fake jobs" affair. While Mr Chirac was mayor of Paris, a powerful job that he used as a springboard to win the French presidency in 1995, various employees paid by the town hall were in reality working for his Gaullist party. Alain Juppé, currently France's foreign minister and then Mr Chirac's right-hand man, was convicted in connection with the same affair back in 2004. Seven of the nine co-defendants in the case were also found guilty this week.

For those who had given up hope of ever seeing Mr Chirac held to account, this is an extraordinary decision. For years investigating judges have crawled all over various cases linked to the former president, from inflated grocery bills to public-housing contracts. But almost all of them were shelved. During his time as president, from 1995-2007, Mr Chirac was protected from prosecution. After he left office, several cases expired under the statute of limitations.

Even the current case did not look as if it would get anywhere. There have been endless procedural delays. Last year Mr Chirac and the ruling UMP party, successor to the party he founded and ran, paid back the Paris town hall €2.2m ($2.9m) in connection with the fake-jobs case; in return the town hall, now held by the Socialists, pulled out as civil plaintiff. Even the public prosecutor had pleaded for Mr Chirac's acquittal.

For his part Mr Chirac, despite reimbursing the town hall, insisted that he had done nothing criminally, or morally, wrong. This autumn his lawyers managed to excuse the 79-year-old former president from attending court on the grounds of mental frailty. They had pleaded to the presiding judge to consider how the decision would weigh on Mr Chirac's place in history.

The paradox is that Mr Chirac has finally been found guilty at a time when public sympathy for him is at a remarkable high. He was not a popular figure when he left office. But in retirement he has become a sort of grandfather figure, looked upon fondly, and he regularly tops popularity polls. He suffers from memory loss, and even some of his detractors have had qualms about the criminal trial. So the French are likely to treat his conviction with mixed feelings, even some regret.

But for the political class, Mr Chirac's conviction sends a powerful message. It may even presage the end of a culture of impunity in French public office. Besides the convictions of Messrs Chirac and Juppé, there is an ongoing investigation into sexual abuse by a former minister, another into illegal party-financing linked to Lilian Bettencourt, billionaire heiress to the L'Oréal cosmetics empire, and yet another into illegal eavesdropping on journalists. For the first time, there is a sense that French politicians are being held to the same standards as ordinary mortals.

 

 

http://www.economist.com/blogs/newsbook/2011/12/jacques-chirac