Chirac allies in the dock as corruption trial begins

SENIOR allies of President Jacques Chirac - including four former ministers - were among nearly 50 people who appeared in court in Paris yesterday at the start of one of France's biggest-ever political corruption trials.

A total of 47 defendants - including politicians, party officials, and representatives of some of France's biggest building companies - are accused of fixing public works contracts in the Paris region in order to obtain illegal party funding.

One of several financial scandals to come to light from Mr Chirac's long tenure to 1995 as mayor of Paris, the affair centres on kickbacks worth over €70 million allegedly paid by the building firms in order to secure bids to renovate secondary schools around the capital. Under a secret arrangement that lasted from 1989 to 1997, companies funnelled back 2% of the money paid by the regional Ile-de-France council, with 1.2% going to Chirac's Rally for the Republic (RPR) and its ally the Republican Party (PR), and 0.8% going to the Socialists (PS), according to the prosecution.

Among the defendants is Michel Roussin, 65, who for many years served as Mr Chirac's cabinet director at Paris city hall and was cooperation minister in Edouard Balladur's government from 1993 to 1995.

Also appearing is Michel Giraud, 75, a former president of the Ile-de-France regional council and labour minister; Gerard Longuet, 59, former PR president and industry minister; and Guy Drut, 54, who was sports minister from 1995 to 1997 and is now on the committee for the Paris 2012 Olympic bid.

The other defendants include the former treasurers from the three parties as well as businessmen accused of fixing the building market in defiance of competition laws.

The investigation, which began in 1997 after a tip-off, came close to drawing in Mr Chirac himself four years later, when magistrates began looking into large sums of cash which were paid for his personal travel expenses as mayor of Paris.

Mr Chirac refused to appear before the judges, and his office said the money - the equivalent of €300,000 - came from bonuses that he earned as prime minister in the 1980s. The case led to a landmark ruling from the high court of appeal that serving presidents are immune from judicial proceedings.

The trial, which is set to last till July, follows last year's conviction of another senior Chirac aide - former prime minister Alain Juppe - for paying RPR staff with municipal funds. An investigation is also under way into the alleged rigging of the Paris public housing market during the early 1990s.

Government insiders fear public disillusionment with its leaders will affect Mr Chirac's campaign for a "yes" vote in the referendum on the European constitution in May.