The French magistrate who, for seven years, investigated corruption allegations against his country’s president, Jacques Chirac, is quitting his job, saying that there is no justice in France.
Judge Eric Halphen further says that his inquiries into alleged wrongdoing by Chirac, focusing on the 18 years when he was the all-powerful Gaullist mayor of Paris, were sabotaged repeatedly. When Halphen finally sought to have the president give evidence before him, other magistrates decided that he had made procedural mistakes and he was replaced. When this new magistrate, in his turn, tried to subpoena Chirac, France’s highest court ruled that he enjoyed presidential immunity and did not have to testify.
This whole affair reflects badly on the French ruling elite, known to ordinary Frenchmen as "le Pouvoir" — "the Power". Halphen’s resignation, with its allegations that he was followed, bugged and filmed, presumably by French intelligence, is likely to rekindle serious doubts about Chirac’s probity. It will surely damage his chances of winning a second term this April, when it is almost certain this his Socialist opponent will be the present prime minister, Lionel Jospin.
But though the allegations that Halphen was looking into focused on Chirac, many observers believe that it is the French body politic itself which needs to be examined. There are widespread suspicions that le Pouvoir, with its cadres of highly intelligent graduates from select academies, has become corrupted by its long dominance of public affairs, which it exerts regardless of the government’s political complexion.
Maybe, the consistent Euro-enthusiasm of successive administrations, despite the clear doubts of the populace at large — Frenchmen voted only very narrowly for the single currency — is le Pouvoir’s way of protecting itself from the ordinary citizen. If France is locked further into Europe, its governors will become even more remote, and will shelter safely behind the walls of the French-inspired bureaucratic machine in Brussels.
If this is the case, then the European Union will be building political dry rot into its new structures. It ought to be a cause of concern to every member state — not that serious allegations are leveled against a fellow member’s head of state, but that the investigation into those charges is hampered and sabotaged.
The impression is that if Chirac were innocent of any wrongdoing during his long rule of Paris, he should have had nothing to fear from answering the allegations against him. If the whole affair were, as his aides claimed, a farrago of lies got up by his political enemies, then, why did he not demonstrate this by producing convincing proof of his innocence by giving personal evidence to the investigating magistrate?
In normal circumstances, no Frenchman can avoid a judge’s summons. This is, after all, the republic that was founded upon equality, as well as liberty and brotherhood. But the president has hidden behind his immunity, demonstrating, it would seem, that he is more equal than any other citizen. The voters will doubtless draw their own conclusions in three months’ time. But, they will only have the chance to vote out the man, not the whole increasingly discredited political system.
