FRANCE:Former French president Jacques Chirac will be questioned by judges before September 15th about his role in a corrupt party financing scheme, his lawyer said yesterday.
Jean Veil, Mr Chirac's counsel and son of French stateswoman Simone Veil, told Europe 1 radio station that Mr Chirac would answer questions about cases preceding his two terms as president, but he invoked life-long presidential immunity under article 67 of the constitution to explain why Mr Chirac has refused to meet judges investigating the Clearstream smear scandal and the mysterious death of the French judge Bernard Borrel in Djibouti.
Gen Philippe Rondot, the former head of the French intelligence service DGSE, told judges he believed he was "invested with a presidential mission" when he investigated corruption charges against Nicolas Sarkozy, then a cabinet minister, in the Clearstream scandal. The charges turned out to be false.
Elisabeth Borrel, the widow of Judge Borrel, accuses Mr Chirac of helping the president of Djibouti to cover up her husband's murder for the sake of French national interest. France has a large military base in Djibouti.
The 12 years of Mr Chirac's presidency were "neutralised" by French law, Mr Veil said. However, "for the period up to 1995, when he was elected president, he is a citizen like any other and he will answer all questions in all the cases that may concern him."
The first case, known as the "Nanterre affair", involves several dozen employees of the former RPR party whose salaries were paid by the city of Paris or private companies between 1989 and 1995, when Mr Chirac was mayor of Paris and president of the RPR.
Within weeks of speaking to judges about the first scandal, Mr Veil said, Mr Chirac expects to be summoned in a second case, the "Paris City Hall affair," in which 26 people, including party employees and spouses or relatives of politicians, unjustifiably received municipal funds.
Mr Chirac will meet judges in secret to avoid a "media frenzy". The former president will have the status of an "accompanied witness" - assisted by his lawyer. This is halfway between an ordinary witness, who does not need a lawyer, and an official suspect. It leaves open the possibility that charges could be filed against Mr Chirac.
But asked what Mr Chirac risked, Mr Veil replied: "Not much. To tell the truth, not much."
Mr Veil said he believed both cases would be dismissed by the end of the year.