Season of scandals in Paris

[Ulhas Joglekar]

10 November 1999 : Season of scandals in Paris
By Brian Love
PARIS: Dominique Strauss-Kahn was portrayed as a hero of the French ruling
class for swiftly resigning as finance minister to deal with accusations of
corruption.
Many commentators described his exit as honourable, but that speaks reams
about the standards of French public life and the spectre of corruption that
haunts the entire political establishment.
Leading lights of all political persuasions are pursued by an increasingly
courageous band of ``clean hands'' investigators on the trail of dodgy party
funding, vote-rigging, nepotism or personal enrichment.
The demise of the finance minister is just one piece of the jig-saw, but it
has renewed hostilities in a guerrilla war which could flush out more
destabilising scandals for both the ruling Socialists and the opposition
Gaullist RPR Party.
A prolonged battle could also set a destructive tone for a presidential
election contest in 2002 expected to pit the Socialist Prime Minister Lionel
Jospin against the Conservative President Jacques Chirac, the founder of the
RPR. The longer the crossfire, the harder it will be for either side to
repair their image with the electorate.
Strauss-Kahn's resignation hurt Jospin's government not only because he was
a crucial minister, but because it put the spotlight back on a broader
inquiry into fraud at the MNEF Student Health Insurance Cooperative and its
links with Socialist supporters.
He quit to fight accusations of wrongdoing linked to 600,000 francs
($97,000) which he received in advisory fees from the MNEF as a business
lawyer before becoming minister in mid-1997, conceding possible ``technical
irregularities'' behind otherwise legitimate work.
The problem for Jospin is that he took power in 1997 with a promise of high
moral standards and several other senior socialists are in the
investigators' firing line for involvement with the MNEF, a bastion of
Socialist activists.
At least briefly, the MNEF saga has deflected attention from other scandals
which have long dogged the RPR, including investigations into suspected
political employment scams and influence-peddling at Paris City Hall, where
Jean Tiberi replaced Chirac as mayor in 1995. Tiberi's problems are also a
worry for Chirac, who was mayor for 18 years.
Scarcely any party is untainted. Among more minor players, the communist
party, junior partner in the socialist-led coalition, is also in trouble.
Its leader, Robert Hue, has been ordered to stand trial over charges of
illegal party funding. He denies any wrongdoing and says the latest
escalation risks damaging daily government as well as eroding public
confidence irreversibly.
``If the polemics continue, they risk impinging on the major policy
considerations at French and international level, and on democracy itself,''
he said.
The number of potential victims is far larger than those who have fallen,
such as former National Assembly speaker Henri Emmanuelli who received a
suspended 18-month jail sentence and was barred from public office for two
years in late 1997 for corruption linked to illicit Socialist party funding.
Tiberi is under formal investigation and his wife Xaviere is in court, with
prosecutors seeking a six-month suspended prison sentence on charges of
abusing public funds following an inquiry into the legitimacy of her
employment by a regional council.
The RPR councillor who paid her 200,000 francs ($31,700) for a brief report
on links between the Essonne region and the rest of the French-speaking
world said in court that her husband had asked him to give her the project.
Jean Tiberi denies wrongdoing and intends to run again for mayor in 2001,
but the charges against his wife have wiped out what party support he could
count on and led to a more uneasy relationship with Chirac. (AP)


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Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. 1999.