FRANCE: The Versailles Appeals Court yesterday reduced the sentence of the former French prime minister Mr Alain Juppé to a 14-month suspended prison term and one year's ineligibility for public office. Lara Marlowe reports from Paris
The decision was regarded as a test of whether Mr Juppé was "politically dead". The short period of ineligibility grants him a new lease on French political life, reviving the possibility he could stand for the presidency in 2007.
President Jacques Chirac has called Mr Juppé "the best among us" and hoped that he would succeed him in France's highest office. However, in January 2004 Mr Juppé was convicted of corrupt party financing, given an 18-month suspended prison sentence and made ineligible for public office for 10 years.
Mr Juppé resigned as president of the right-wing UMP (Union for Popular Movement) party and gave up his seat as a deputy in the National Assembly. Last Sunday Mr Nicolas Sarkozy, a brash former cabinet minister whose rise was resisted by Mr Chirac, took over the UMP.
Thanks to yesterday's ruling, Mr Juppé will be able to mount a challenge to Mr Sarkozy's hold on the French right.
It has often been said that Mr Juppé "took the fall" for Mr Chirac. He served as treasurer for the city of Paris and headed Mr Chirac's Gaullist RPR party (which evolved into the UMP) while Mr Chirac was mayor of Paris.
During that period the RPR dipped into the city's coffers to fund its activities. Mr Juppé was convicted of employing six party workers, including his own secretary, with municipal funds. The prosecutor argued that Mr Juppé "had to have known" of the arrangement.
The severe verdict handed down by the Nanterre tribunal last January said that Mr Juppé "betrayed the confidence of the sovereign people". Yesterday's ruling was more clement, though it noted that he should have "applied to his own party. . . the rules that he voted in parliament." Mr Juppé "devoted himself to the service of the state for many years, derived no personal enrichment from the offences committed for the benefit of his party, so he must not be a scapegoat", the ruling said.
Citing Mr Juppé's "unanimously recognised intellectual qualities", the court also regretted that he "did not feel compelled to assume his legal responsibilities and persisted in denying facts before the justice system".
In contrast with his behaviour at the first trial, Mr Juppé appeared humble and attended every session of the appeal. He hired Mr Jean-René Farthouat, the lawyer who successfully defended the former foreign minister Roland Dumas.
Mr Juppé initially admitted he knew of "dubious practices" at the RPR, but he later retracted that and maintained that the RPR employees actually worked for the city. None of them had a telephone or office at the town hall.
The city of Paris, which is now run by the socialists, is suing Mr Juppé and five other officials, condemned to suspended prison sentences, for €1.234 million in reimbursement for the salaries paid with municipal funds.
Mr Juppé's lawyer said he would not appeal yesterday's ruling and that he would "reserve his comments for the people of Bordeaux". Mr Juppé remained mayor of Bordeaux after resigning from his other positions. He will have to step down for the next year.