Magistrate orders ECB boss candidate Trichet to face trial
The magistrate took a shock decision to send Mr Trichet, the man slated to become ECB president, to court in France.
Paris Deputy Public Prosecutor Francois Foulon said Philippe Courroye, a magistrate making an investigation into the early 1990s Credit Lyonnais bank scandal, had decided that Mr Trichet, head of the French central bank, should face trial.
Magistrate Courroye's decision went against official recommendations by state prosecutors and went on to further raise the spectre of there being a lengthy trial that clouds Mr Trichet's prospects of succeeding Dutchman Wim Duisenberg as the ECB head in July, 2003.
EU governments came to an agreement four years ago that a Frenchman should succeed Mr Duisenberg as one of the world's most powerful central bankers.
French sources said news of the trial had not altered Paris's view that Mr Trichet should be ECB president.
This view found widespread echo throughout Europe.
“There is a kind of gentleman's agreement that the next ECB president will be French,” Marc Marechal, deputy chief of staff to Belgian Finance Minister Didier Reynders, said.
If Mr Trichet is not eligible, it will set off a scramble in France to find another successor to Mr Duisenberg.
One obvious candidate is Christian Noyer, whose term as ECB vice-president and ECB board member expired at the end of May.
Magistrate Courroye is heading an inquiry into suspected account-rigging at Credit Lyonnais in the early 1990s. He decided there were enough grounds for Mr Trichet, 59, to be heard in court.
The far-reaching probe is said to have generated more than 50 tonnes of documents.
They include former Lyonnais boss Jean-Yves Haberer, Jacques de Larosiere, Bank of France boss at the time, and Jean-Pascal Beaufret, a Treasury official then and now chief financial officer at technology giant Alcatel.
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