PARIS, 23 July — Airbus, the European aircraft manufacturer, is being accused of having surreptitiously financed the French Socialist Party of ex-Prime Minister Lionel Jospin as well as certain German political parties close to Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
The story was broken on the front page of yesterday’s Le Figaro, the French national daily with close ties to President Jacques Chirac.
According to the newspaper, Airbus is accused of having funneled funds through its communications department not only to the Parti Socialiste Francais, which until last month controlled the French National Assembly, but also of certain German political parties considered close to present Schroeder, a man presently fighting for his political life as polls show that his SPD political coalition will be largely outdistanced by the CDU-CSU coalition headed by Edmund Stoiber during legislative elections on Sept. 22.
Stoiber was in Paris last week to openly seek the support of Chirac, who has never hidden his disenchantment with Schroeder, especially since Schroeder declared his allegiance to President George W. Bush in a series of full-page advertisements in the US press that appeared the day following Bush’s election in November 2000.
Until then, Germany and France had had a long-lasting alliance that saw the two countries serve as the mainspring of the European Union. That France wants to revive not only the friendship but also the central role of the two countries — the principal founders of the EU — in Europe, was at the center of President Chirac’s foreign policy pronouncements made during his successful presidential reelection campaign that saw him returned to office with more than 82 percent of the vote on May 5.
The internal audit document on which the Airbus story is based has just made its way to the headquarters of EADS, the mother company of Airbus which was created two years ago from the merger of four of Europe’s most prominent aerospace companies.
It is understood that the document in question was leaked by German interests within EADS who are obviously keen on further embarrassing Chancellor Schroeder, who has in recent weeks been subject to a flurry of press revelations regarding the behavior of some of his ministers, and also to negative news with regard to the state of the German economy. Indeed, the number of unemployed Germans could reach 4 million by election time.
The key figure in the scandal, at least according to Le Figaro, is Philippe Delmas, the head of communications at Airbus, who, the story implies, used much of communications budget of 120 million euros ($120 million) to finance causes that had nothing to do with the public and media image of Airbus.
In a rejoinder to the accusation, Airbus Secretary-General Paul-Henri Ricaud claims that the stepped-up budget “was not unusual” for it represented the participation by Airbus in last year’s Paris Air Show, as well the cost of the launch of new products, notably the Airbus A380.
The internal document, says Le Figaro, also reveals the close ties that exist between Delmas and Stephane Fouks, the head of Euro RSCG, the aircraft manufacturer’s principal outside communications agency. Fouks is in turn a close ally of Jospin, with Euro RSCG the principal communications agency for the French Socialist Party.
It was Euro RSCG that handled the communications for the French Socialists’ recent parliamentary campaign, which saw them soundly defeated by the French right which now has a solid majority in France’s new National Assembly.
The Figaro story also claims that a woman employee of the Airbus communications department was fired two months ago for having criticized the way that Delmas fielded out Airbus’ outside communications campaigns, and that she had standing orders to systematically award all new campaigns to Euro RSCG without first seeking proposals from other outside public relations agencies.
