France: A vast corruption trial that opened yesterday is likely to fuel French disdain for the political class two months before the referendum on the European constitutional treaty.
Disillusionment with politicians is driving growing opposition to the treaty.
Most embarrassing for President Jacques Chirac, his own former cabinet director, Michel Roussin, is prominent among the 47 defendants. Mr Roussin was a close aide to Mr Chirac from 1984 until 1993.
In Judge Armand Riberolles's 271-page charge sheet, a building contractor recounts how Mr Roussin summoned him to Paris City Hall (when Mr Chirac was mayor) and told him: "You got the contract for the Limours lycée, so you owe me 500,000 francs."
From 1989 until 1997, the RPR and PR (since melded in the centre-right UMP), and socialist and communist parties stand accused of maintaining a "corruption pact" in the Ile-de-France (Paris) region, whereby they divided up 2 per cent commissions on 241 building contracts for secondary schools.
The contracts represented more than €1.8 billion, and the leading French construction companies allegedly paid some €30 million in bribes.
The RPR, the party Mr Chirac founded in the mid-1970s, held the presidency of the regional council, so it took 1.2 per cent of all kick-backs. The remaining 0.8 per cent was divided between the socialists and communists. Four former right-wing cabinet ministers are among the accused. They, like other politicians, builders and urban planners who participated in the scheme are charged with "complicity in passive and active corruption, complicity in influence-peddling and fraud".
In their accounts, building contractors listed the payments under the headings PQVS (an abbreviation for "For You Know Who"), "Economic Hazards" or "Royalties". Some officials received suitcases full of cash; others transfers to Swiss bank accounts.
The scheme was discovered because Green party councillors who were offered a share complained to justice officials.