Chirac to settle Paris jobs claim

FORMER French president Jacques Chirac and the governing UMP party have reportedly offered to pay €2.2m in damages to Paris city council to settle a corruption claim dating back more than 15 years.

Judges have been looking into claims that Chirac and five officials gave 21 fake jobs at the Mairie de Paris to friends and close aides within his RPR party between 1992 and 1995, while he was city mayor.

Chirac, who has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, was charged in 2007 with misusing public money and is due to appear in court later this year.

Paris’s Socialist mayor Bertrand Delanoë is registered as a civil claimant in the case. He is demanding that the city council is paid back the €2.2m it paid out in staff salaries and social charges, plus interest and legal fees.

According to today’s Le Canard Enchaîné newspaper, the former president has now offered to pay a €550,000 settlement to the Mairie de Paris to avoid trial.

Chirac’s offer represents 25% of the total bill. According to the paper, Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP party has offered to pay the remaining 75% - a total of €1.65m.

The settlement will be put to a vote by Paris city council later this month. In return for the payout, Delanoë will pull out as a claimant in the case.

Charges were filed against Chirac in May 2007 after he lost his presidential immunity. This is the first time a former French president has been put under judicial investigation.

The Paris public prosecutor’s office, the Parquet de Paris, last year urged judge Xavière Simeoni to throw out the case against him, arguing that he “did not show a manifest intention to break the rules”.

Ms Simeoni rejected the request and has decided to bring the case to court nonetheless.

Photo: Eric Pouhier