AFTER 15-years of judicial procedures and obstruction, senior French judges yesterday decided that Mr Maurice Papon (86) must go on trial in an assize court for complicity in crimes against humanity concerning the deportation of 1,690 Jews from Bordeaux between 1942 and 1944. But no date was fixed for the hearing.
Mr Papon, whose previously successful rearguard action against prosecution became associated with the late Mr Francois Mitterrand's protection of former Vichy officials, will be the first senior French civil servant to be judged for allegedly helping the Nazis murder French Jews and refugees.
The only Frenchman to be tried on a similar charge, a former Lyons police chief, Paul Touvier, died in prison last year while serving a life sentence. The SS chief in Lyons, Klaus Barbie, also died in prison after being convicted of crimes against humanity in 1987.
Mr Papon, Paris police chief in 1961 and a cabinet minister in 1978, seemed likely to lose his judicial battle after the Gaullist party former leader, Mr Jacques Chirac, replaced Mr Mitterrand - a former Vichy official - as president in 1995 and condemned Vichy as a criminal regime.
The long-running sequel to wartime rivalry between the Gaullist resistance movement and Philippe Petain's pro-Nazi government appeared to be in Mr Papon's mind when he issued a statement through his lawyer, Mr Jean-Marc Varaut, comparing his case to the 19th century anti-semitic Dreyfus affair.
"Like all political trials, the results are decided in advance by the powers that be," he said.
Attempts to prosecute Mr Papon began in 1981 when a former resistance worker, Mr Michel Slitinsky, who lost much of his family in round ups, found documents signed by Mr Papon authorising the transfer of Bordeaux Jews to the Drancy transit concentration camp in Paris.
As secretary general of the Gironde departement, Mr Papon was personally responsible for Jewish affairs and was congratulated by the Nazis for his zeal.
At the time of the revelations, Mr Papon, who claimed he had worked for the Resistance, was Gaullist budget minister in Mr Raymond Barre's right-wing ministry. Mr Slitinsky's findings forced him to resign.
. A Paris court yesterday cleared the French former film star, Brigitte Bardot, of inciting's racial hatred by saying that her country was being invaded by sheep-slaughtering Muslims. The 62-year-old animal rights activist, cheered by fans and animal lovers, had denied the charges at a December 19th hearing in the case.
She had denounced as barbarous the ritual slaughter of sheep for the Muslim festival of Aid al-Kebir.