[A-List] France: corruption d'état

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Appeal threatens to reveal scale of French corruption
By John Lichfield in Paris
The Independent, 05 November 2002

Defendants in a corruption appeal trial that began yesterday are threatening
to blow the whistle on the alleged shady dealings of successive French
governments in selling arms and negotiating oil rights in Asia and Africa.

The most complex and the most colourful corruption saga in recent French
history resumed yesterday with the start of an appeal by the former foreign
minister Roland Dumas, 80, against a conviction and six months' jail
sentence for influence peddling.

Four other defendants in the case of the alleged pillaging of the
Elf-Aquitaine oil company in the 1980s and early 1990s - including Christine
Deviers-Joncour, 55, the former mistress of M. Dumas and self-styled "Whore
of the Republic" - are also appealing against the convictions and jail
sentences handed down 18 months ago.

The first day was interrupted by legal wrangling after the lawyer for one of
the defendants served notice his arguments would cover territory declared a
"defence secret" by the French government.

Alfred Sirven, 75, a former senior executive at Elf who was arrested hiding
in the Philippines - to be summonsed to the original trial - says the large
sums moved around in his name can only be explained by a multibillion-pound
deal to sell six French frigates to Taiwan in the late 1980s.

References to that deal, one of the main strands to the entire, tangled
saga, were banned from the first trial after the transaction was declared by
the French government to be covered by defence secrecy laws.

M. Sirven once said he knew enough secrets to blow up the French state
several times over. How far he will be allowed to go in describing the
Taiwan deal when his lawyers start their pleading today remains unclear.

Another defendant, Loik Le Floch-Prigent, 59, a former president of
Elf-Aquitaine, told the French press he was also prepared to blow the
whistle on a culture of illegal commissions, and surreptitious payments to
African leaders, which, he says, existed at Elf for many years.

M. Le Floch-Prigent says that those payments were not only approved but
inspired by successive French governments. He says he has documentary
evidence - including a signed letter - that proves President Jacques Chirac
was aware of such payments.

Similar threats of startling revelations were made before the original trial
but failed to materialise, partly because the judges refused to accept
evidence that was not directly linked to the charges.

M. Dumas was accused of fixing the appointment of M. Floch-Prigent and M.
Sirven to top positions in Elf. In return, the prosecution alleged, his
mistress was given a "job" at the company to channel gifts in his direction,
including a £1,100 pair of hand-made shoes.

The court ruled M. Dumas had accepted illegal payments from Elf but that
there was no proof that he played a leading part in the conspiracy.

Hence his relatively lenient six-month sentence. Mme Deviers-Joncourt was
sentenced to 18 months in jail. M. Le Floch-Prigent and M. Sirven were
jailed for three and a half years and four years respectively. All four were
also ordered to pay fines, ranging from £100,000 for M. Dumas to £250,000
for M. Le Floch-Prigent.