Scandals Swirl Around French Government

by Julio Godoy

(IPS) PARIS -- France produced revolutionary ideas of liberty, equality and fraternity but is now retreating from all these, critics of the government say.

Most blame President Jacques Chirac -- or King Chirac as they have begun to call him -- for bringing back monarchical ways.

Chirac's defense of former prime minister Alain Juppe who was indicted on corruption charges last week is being held up as contempt for the rule of law. And the laws he is trying to bring in such as a ban on wearing religious symbols to schools and another that seeks ostensibly to fight organized crime replace liberty with absolutism, critics say.

Chirac's defense of his protege Juppe was not surprising. He would face investigation in the same corruption case but is protected by constitutional immunity of the kind monarchs enjoyed.

A tribunal in Nanterre near Paris found Juppe guilty of embezzlement of public money. He was given an 18-month suspended prison sentence and barred from public office for ten years.

Juppe who was deputy mayor then while Chirac was mayor, found guilty of paying party members out of Paris municipal funds. Juppe "deceived public trust," the court ruled.

Juppe is appealing against the order. He admitted in a television interview that he had made "mistakes", but said the sentence was "too hard."

Chirac called Juppe "an honest, capable state servant." France, he said, "needs such leaders."

The judges condemned anonymous threats, tapping of their telephones and illegal searches of their offices through the course of the proceedings against Juppe.

Chirac created his own investigative panel to probe these complaints instead of giving the responsibility to the Supreme Magistrate's Council (CSM, after its French name). Judges took the rare step of refusing to cooperate with the government inquiry. The CSM "regretted" Chirac's decision, and called it a violation of the constitution.

Chirac is now leading an attack on the judges who passed the sentence on Juppe. Prime minister Jean-Pierre Rafarin has gone so far as to ask for "another verdict" favorable to Juppe.

Leading commentator with the Liberation daily Gerard Dupuy told IPS that Chirac's stand shows his "contempt for the independence of judges and for the system of checks and balances in a democracy."

President of the Union of Magistrates Dominique Barella called Chirac's reaction "proof that France is still a developing country in judicial matters."

Barella said Chirac is shaming the historic liberal tradition in France from the revolutionary leaders of the late 18th century who produced the motto "liberty, equality and fraternity" to modern writers and philosophers such as Emile Zola and Jean Paul Sartre.

A new law being introduced by the Chirac government this week to tackle organized crime smacks of "dictatorship", another critic says.

The law is set to increase police powers by authorizing the tapping of telephones and camera surveillance of private homes, and by extending the provision of detention before trial.

The new law is "worthy of a police state, of a dictatorship, and contrary to international norms of civil liberties," professor of law at the university of Sorbonne Mireille Delmas-Marty told IPS. "The French constitutional court would reject such a law."

Delmas-Marty said the law seeks to copy "the notion of repressive jurisprudence imposed in the United States in the so-called war against international terrorism."

The law, she said, gives the ministry of justice the power to close a case without further investigation if it is considered politically sensitive. "Such judicial merchandising is unworthy of liberal democracy."