Chirac faces second trial

France’s former president Jacques Chirac has been ordered to stand trial in a second party financing case dating back to his 1977-1995 time as Paris mayor.

Chirac, 77, is already facing trial in March over a long-standing corruption case. Now a judge in the Paris suburb of Nanterre has ordered him to be tried for “illegal conflict of interest” in a similar case.

Chirac – who founded the Rally for the Republic party, the precursor to President Nicolas Sarkozy’s Union for a Popular Movement – has been dogged for years by a series of party financing scandals, with allegations that he set up a system to feed millions of euros in funds to his party.