From today’s Guardian:
“A public prosecutor in Paris said yesterday that 12 past and present officials from Jacques Chirac’s UMP party would appear in court next year after allegations of vote-rigging in the capital in the days when the French president was its mayor. In a 196-page report which could further damage Mr Chirac’s reputation, the prosecutor said the officials, including the former mayor of the third arrondissement, Jacques Dominati, and his two sons, should be tried for “fraudulently influencing” the outcome of a poll.”
Jacques Chirac, some people may recall, has been a little, well, critical of US efforts to bring democracy to Iraq. Perhaps he should start looking a little closer to home.
And, oh yes, the same Guardian report contains this little nugget:
“Meanwhile, it emerged yesterday that expenditure by the Elysée palace has increased hugely since Mr Chirac was elected president in 1995. The revelation came a day after French MPs approved a 2005 presidential budget of €31.9m (£22m). The daily Le Monde said in 1994, the final year of François Mitterrand’s presidency, that the Elysée had spent (in equivalent terms) €3.3m. Allegations of runaway spending under Mr Chirac are not new and were countered yesterday by his office, which said the budget increase was mainly due to a shortfall due to the abolition, in 2001, of the “special funds”, an unaudited and hidden multi-million-pound slush fund that the French state allocated itself for “extraordinary expenses”. Income to offset the cut appears in the presidential budget. “
There’s one place, and one place only, for this destructive and useless individual.
Jail.