Jacques Chirac and his friends have been suspected of corruption for many years, and his chums look indeed set to go to jail:
A major corruption trial has begun in France involving allies of President Jacques Chirac from his time as Paris mayor in the 1980s and 1990s.
Among the 47 accused are former Sports Minister Guy Drut, who is currently on Paris’ Olympic bid committee.
The trial centres on a system alleged to have been initiated by President Chirac’s Rally for the Republic (RPR).
Companies are accused of paying major political parties to win contracts to renovate schools around Paris.
Prosecutors argue that the RPR and its ally, the Republican Party, received donations worth 1.2% of awarded contracts, while the Socialists got 0.8%.
The arrangement allegedly lasted from 1989 to 1997.
Mr Chirac was the mayor of Paris for 18 years, until he was elected president in 1995.
The French political attitude is quite tolerant of corruption, but it seems that Chirac has gone way too far even by these lax standards. It is an open secret that he would have gone to jail if he hadn’t been elected as French President. He was very glad about his reprieve, but it looks now as if it might backfire badly. Patience with him has run out after all these years of evading justice, and now Émile Zola Jr, one of the most influential French writers, has penned a fiery essay, in which he is demanding impeachment and capital punishment for the Jacques Chirac, and even calls for a thoroughly renewed French republic:
May justice run its course!
Wow Zola, still alive and writing with such clarity at his age. Its gotta be the French Paradox. If Chirac can count on this “paradox” as well, he’ll have plenty of time to catch up on Zola’s writings in prison. Vive La Republique.
Ecrazez l’enfame.
Very interesting, Ralf.
I understand that in the run off against Le Pen, French voters borrowed the slogan from the David Duke–Edwin Edwards race and urged others to “Votez pour le croque!” (Feel free to correct my French, if I have that wrong.) So, the fact that Chirac is a crook is not a new idea.
I assume “Emile Zola, Jr.” is a pen name. If so, do you have any idea who he (or she) is?
I thought it was against the law to criticize the President of France. (I’m not joking, by the way.)
“Among the 47 accused are former Sports Minister Guy Drut…”
Okay, France has a minster for Sports? I thought having congress grilling baseball players was bad enough but at least we don’t seem to have a formal part of the executive dealing with just sports.
Does anybody know formal or extensive the presumed “Ministry for Sports” is or what it would compare to in the US?
It’s April 2nd now, so I can tell you that the ‘J’accuse…’ article was my attempt at a April fools joke, that unfortunately fell flat. I’ll need to do better next year.
But the fact remains that a number of Chirac’s cronies are headed for prison, and that he’ll join them there if he doesn’t manage to get reelected as often as it takes to let the statute of limitations run out. :)
No idea, but I think he should be tested for steroids at the border the next time he tries to leave France.
I don’t think so. There’s a French version of the British satirical show Spitting Image where Chirac was for years shown as Supermenteur (Superliar), and they never got in trouble for it:
The Ministry of Sports is yet more proof that the French are the true masters of government bureaucracy.
The closest approximation of the Ministry of Sports would be your local parks and recreation department on steroids with the ability to meddle in professional sports with bureaucratic panache.
The French have a minister/ministry for everything.
Case in point:
The Ministry of Cheese was a clandestine french government agency with ties to several secretive paneuropean societies including the Franc Masons and Rosicrucians. Their main agenda was the undermining and eventual destruction of the American Dairy Industry.
Unfortunately the ominous stench of wash-rined cheese proved too difficult for the Ministry to keep hidden or smuggle via the Canadian border into american markets. Consequently the Ministry was quickly dissolved with little national or international press, as the French do not like to admit to their shortcomings.
The framework of the agency was dormant for some time and was eventually reorganized and assimilated deep within the Belgian bowels of the European Union. Here it was thought the likelihhod of the former agency’s success would prove far more viable and its mission more credible to the international community should it succeed.
I recieved the majority of this information from a colleague of mine with Agence France Presse and his EU Brussels source whom he jokingly referred to as “Deep Goat.” I’ve heard nothing of this in the international press.
The horror, the horror!!!!
Amusing Sidestory:
I lived with a french family for 6 months while abroad. The mother ruled the appartment and family with an iron fist. I gave her the title of “Interior Minister” which she hated but which the husband thoroughly enjoyed. This would probably explain the strychnine poisoning.
Good joke, Ralf.
James
No kidding, Neal, not a peep. I have to look into this, thanks.
I suppose you are kidding about the strychnine…
Joke. I don’t think so. The only part that was clearly fictional was that anyone in the French MSM opposes Frog Boy. That and they claim not to have capital punishment.
But a quick trial followed by a painful death would be more than Frog Boy deserves. And a 6th republic based on something other than anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism and the delusion of French importance, would be a step forward.