Eh bien, Monsieur the Former Président (and others of your corrupt ilk): This is going on your PERMANENT RECORD -- so there!

Former French President Jacques Chirac has been meted out a stern judicial finger-wagging for his role in two counts of corruption dating back to 1995 and before, when he was still mayor of Paris and merely laying the groundwork for his presidential run.


"This is a strong message from the court -- a message to all politicians of responsibility. It's also proof of a mature and transparent democracy that is today able to make a distinction and try a former president. I see it as a historic and very important decision for the future of French democracy."

-- Jérôme Karsenti, a lawyer for the French anti-corruption
group Anticor, which pressed for Chirac's prosecution

by Ken

Monsieur Karsenti expresses one viewpoint, advancing a principle with which I think we can all agree: that it is crucial to a would-be democracy to be able and willing to hold "all politicians of responsibility" accountable for their actions, on up to the president himself. How often have we here as well as untold others elsewhere insisted that every failure to hold public officials accountable sends a message that what they're accused of doing was in the end OK. Even more sinister is the accompanying implicit messsage: If you want to find the line you have to cross to be held accountable, you'll have to keep looking. Which means pushing the boundary ever farther until you encounter some kind of pushback.

All accounts of the verdict just delivered against the former French president stress its historic nature. Here's Nina Rai, reporting for Xihuanet:

With the issue of graft in the highest echelons of power becoming more rampant world over, one top dignitary has finally been caught in the legal dragnet and is now facing a prison term for his offence. It is none other than the former French President Jacques Chirac.

In a landmark judgment, 79-year-old Chirac has been found guilty of misappropriation of public funds and accordingly, handed down a two-year suspended jail term for diverting public funds and abusing public trust, as per media reports on Thursday, Dec. 15, 2011.

The ex-French head of state was made to stand for trial on charges that goes back to his tenure as Mayor of Paris from the years 1977 to 1995. This is the first time in that country’s history that a former President has faced trial and been convicted in a French Court, since 1945 when Marshal Philippe Petain, the head of the wartime Vichy regime, was found guilty of supporting the Nazis.

The charge against Chirac was nepotism which included creating jobs at Paris City Hall for friends and political allies. Jobs which didn’t in the first place exist. He is even accused of using his power to wrest control of the French right and then making a bid for the presidency. Along with Chirac there are nine other persons facing charges of graft at the highest level.

On grounds of poor health, the aging former head Chirac did not show up in court to hear the court verdict. He has denied any kind of wrong-doing. The Tribunal judge Dominique Pauthe, in his judgement said "Jacques Chirac has breached the duty of probity required for public officials, to the detriment of the public interest of Parisians.”

It now remains to be seen how the French populace will take this verdict and sentence of jail term as Chirac, when he was president from 1995 to 2007 was and is even now a highly popular figure in his country.

One quibble here: Contrary to what ms. Rai writes in paragraph 1 about a "top dignitary . . . facing a prison term for his offence," as she tells us in paragraph 2, Monsieur l'Ancient Président isn't going to be fitted for prison garb anytime soon. That two-year prison "sentence" was suspended. As the AP reported it:

He was given a two-year suspended prison sentence, which goes on Chirac's criminal record, but means he does not have to go behind bars. The court said it took into account his age, health and status as a former head of state when determining the sentence.

That's right, folks, this conviction is going right on Jacques's permanent record!

Compare this with the brutal justice meted out to Chirac loyalist Alain Juppé (right), the current French foreign minister, who served as premier under Chirac from 1995 to 1997 and, according to Washington Post's Edward Cody, "was convicted in 2004 on similar charges and given a suspended sentence of 14 months in prison along with a year of ineligibility for office." The poor fellow was forced to retreat in shame, passing "a spell in the Canada and the United States," after which "he returned to become mayor of Bordeaux and, eventually, foreign minister under President Nicolas Sarkozy."

Cody reports that Chirac himself is said to have appeared "enfeebled in recent outings" and has been "found to be suffering from a neurological afliction leading to memory loss." This was the ground on which he was excused from appearing at his trial. However, Cody also reports: "Chirac caused chuckles across the country last summer when photographers snapped him drinking piña coladas and flirting with girls on the terrace of a cafe at a chic Mediterranean resort town until his wife, Bernadette, came by and, in a scolding tone, told him it was time to leave." ("Time to leave"! That's hilarious! Ha-ha!) But then, that was last summer, whereas it wasn't till the beginning of September that the former president learned definitively that he would go on trial along with nine of his henchmen (all but two of whom were also convicted by the three-member judicial panel that passed sentence on the former president.)

Well, not exactly with those henchmen. On September 5, the Telegraph's Henry Samuel quoted the judge, Dominique Pauthé, explaining: "Mr Chirac will not be ordered to appear in person and as a result he shall be tried in his absence, represented by his lawyers." Yes, this was the same judge who Nina Rai told us declared today, in announcing the sentence: "Jacques Chirac has breached the duty of probity required for public officials, to the detriment of the public interest of Parisians."

Back in September, when Judge Pauthé announced that Chirac would be excused from visiting his trial, the judge had earlier "read from a letter by Mr Chirac's lawyers saying the former president wanted the trial to go ahead as it would be 'useful for our democracy' and show that 'all people are equal under the law.' " Bravo, Chirac! This is so commendable that one feels churlish in pointing out that lawyers for Chirac -- very possibly some of the same ones! -- who had toiled so diligently to delay prosecution after he left the presidency (with its shield against prosecution) in 2005. Who made it possible, for example, for the former president to be discovered by his wife "drinking piña coladas and flirting with girls on the terrace of a cafe at a chic Mediterranean resort town" last summer. When you consider that the corruption counts for which he has now been convicted date back to the period up to 1995, this qualifies as something less than swift or certain justice.

Even with his neurological problems, Chirac has continued to insist that he did nothing wrong. By which he appears to mean "nothing that everyone else wasn't doing." The Post's Edward Cody notes, "Until recently, sleight of hand such as Chirac’s was common practice, and many high-ranking officials were paid with paper bags stuffed with cash taken from secret slush funds."

Paper bags stuffed with cash? Really now! Shades of "Sunny John" Boehner handing out tobacco lobbyists' cash to his members on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives! One likes to think that make-believe democracies have developed far more sophisticated systems for delivering bribes. Surely the Koch brothers aren't having their zillions of corrupting cash handed out stuffed in paper bags!

Let's have a little respect for the democratic process, please. Isn't this what offshore bank accounts are for?

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