Chirac too ill to attend trial

FORMER French president Jacques Chirac will not be required to attend his corruption trial after his lawyers said the 78-year-old is suffering memory lapses.

Judge Dominique Pauthe said last night that the trial will be allowed to go ahead without the ex-president in court.

France’s first trial involving a former head of state since the Second World War involves two cases centring on the alleged creation of more than two dozen fake City Hall jobs used to fund Chirac’s conservative party while he was mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995.