A 10-year investigation into alleged embezzlement of public funds by the former French president Jacques Chirac may end in a damp squib. In a decision that will provoke allegations of political interference by his successor Nicolas Sarkozy, the Paris public prosecutor's office has decided that Mr Chirac has "no case to answer" in accusations that he ran his political party with officials illegally placed on the Paris town hall payroll from 1983 to 1995. The decision to drop the case must still be approved by a judge. It is, in any case, just one of several allegations of misuse of public funds brought against Mr Chirac, 76. But the recommendation that he should not go on trial, despite considerable documentary evidence suggesting his guilt, is bound to draw attention to Mr Chirac's relationship with President Sarkozy.
A 10-year investigation into alleged embezzlement of public funds by the former French president Jacques Chirac may end in a damp squib.
In a decision that will provoke allegations of political interference by his successor Nicolas Sarkozy, the Paris public prosecutor's office has decided that Mr Chirac has "no case to answer" in accusations that he ran his political party with officials illegally placed on the Paris town hall payroll from 1983 to 1995.
The decision to drop the case must still be approved by a judge. It is, in any case, just one of several allegations of misuse of public funds brought against Mr Chirac, 76. But the recommendation that he should not go on trial, despite considerable documentary evidence suggesting his guilt, is bound to draw attention to Mr Chirac's relationship with President Sarkozy.
That, or Chirac has a file this thick on Sarkozy in a vault in a Swiss bank... Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.
