Jacques Chirac has been named in several cases of alleged corruption and abuse, some of which have already led to felony convictions.

Jacques Chirac, as current president of France, enjoys virtual immunity from prosecution for acts preceding his tenure as president, following from a decision of the Constitutional Council. This decision itself was highly controversial: the council was consulted on the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court, not about the status of the president with respect to the national criminal justice system. At the time, the president of the council was Roland Dumas, who later had to retire from his functions because of his implication in the Elf Aquitaine scandal.

Jacques Chirac refused to testify before investigating magistrate Éric Halphen, arguing that this would be incompatible with his presidential functions.

On October 10, 2001, the Court of Cassation ruled that, while the president cannot be prosecuted by normal judicial means during his mandate, such an impossibility suspends the delays of prescription (statute of limitation). If Jacques Chirac does not run for office again in 2007 or is not re-elected, he may then be prosecuted on the several affairs he is involved in.

Chirac is not untypical of French leaders as the revolution soon fell into a reign of terror where anyone with a grudge could denouce someone on and have them killed on suspicion of looking funny! French politics has been corrupt ever since.

For the people by the people?

For themselves by a bastadised process of law!

and you can smell 'em from Dover!

Hey Tony, it's just the way of the French. The gossip the corruption etc. One of the best books I have ever read is Marie Antoinette, The Journey. It's amazing what they did to this woman.

Ps. You have to see Being Bobby Brown. He and Whitney trashed on over to London and shopped at Harrods and showed off their low class American ass'. My Mother was horrified!!!! Hehe

The London trip was the show I saw clips from. Harrods is a shop not a church or a temple. It is no different from the local 5&Dime in that it has objects to sell and looks for people to sell it too.

The Browns have an agenda, Harrods sleazy owner has an agenda, the TV company has an agenda and I am not buying into this!

From what I get from US TV America is all porn stars/porn star wannabes thugs and spoilt trash. Where are nice Americans like that doctor out of House?

RE: CHIRAC

At least, unlike the US & UK, France didn't instigate a war that killed 100,000 civilians!!! Some experts predicted chaos in Irak and that's exactly what's happening + bombs in Madrid, London. Chirac may be slightly corrupt (but look at Enron, Haliburton...), senile and prone to the occasional blunder (nuclear tests, misguided words...) but he can take a moral stance: he apologised to the Jewsish community for what happened in WW2 & was 100% right on Irak. He wanted to fight poverty & unemployment in France but couldn't do it as the French are too lazy but France has a much lower poverty rate than the US & UK. The Irak war didn't decreased terror, it multiplied the hatred & number of candidates for 'martyrdom'. Bush is Bush but Blair bears some responsibility for what has & is happening in Irak & UK - an opinion actually voiced by some Britons.

Thank you JMR I completely agree and I was wondering when someone was going to say it. Read what NYC's own Lady Bunny has said on the subject. The Lady gets it!

http://www.ladybunny.net/blog/

The truth is not just what you read yesterday but lies in the past

Ahh… France hates America perhaps even more than it hates England – It has never recovered from the ignominy ( in their eyes) of having the allies win back France from the Germans. DeGaulle never, ever forgave us for that and kept us out of the EU because of it then went ahead and crippled the dream with the self serving CAP.

France was cold on the war because they were making millions in oil trades with the Saddam regime knowing the money was not going to food and medicine for kids but lining the pockets of the elite – but all that give is that Gallic shrug - who cares as long as France gets it petroleum and the farmers are happy and voting for the corrupt!

France instigates terror when it wants – look at the horror that was the 60’s Algiers campaign – the did not mind kicking the shit out of Muslim women and children when it affected the French purse!

Or even the killing of a Greenpeace activist if the get in the way of nuclear testing

I am not defending anyone but don’t tell me a politician is anything but a politician, I have always said there are no white hats anymore…

Tony, calm down, u seem to have much anger in you; u live in the past. Chirac doesn't have blood on his hands, Blair clearly does. If not for this I would have the highest respect for Blair but he's morally corrupt. The majority of the population in France, UK, Spain, Italy, Canada... were against the illegal Irak war. In England u have 2 extremities, some who love visiting France, buying a property (in Normandy, Sth of France a la 1 yr in Provence...) and those - the gutter press, you, who hate France with a vengeance. Most French are in the middle, don't care much, some study, visit the UK. They also don't hate the US; they appreciate the musicians, jazz artists, film directors, actors, writers... The French like food, sex, love, arts. I feel no country is better than the next. Relax.

Actually I have no anger in me. Only displaced light. I know more about France than I may let on but when we talk of any country we talk about what the political masters do not the public. The reality is the world is governed by a relative handful of activists while most people are the same only different and are happy as long as their aspirations are not compromised.

We can only talk in subjective perception as all experience is relative to the person, but do not try to prove anything using subjective argument because to deny my argument is to deny your own – the gutter press is gutter press because you say so not because of any intrinsic modality of the press, the war is illegal because you say so not because of any objective reality ( although the war argument is interesting as to be illegal is to say there is a legal war – I say war is by its nature outside of legality and more of a moral debate I say morally all war is wrong whilst the church and state will say there are grounds for a just war because they need the sanction and so draw it into law), and you use the term ‘ the majority of the population in…’ – come now, unless you have asked them directly that is subjective knowledge based on perception, assumption and the result of polls for which the veracity of finding any sort of proof about any subject has long been in doubt. Plus the inherent contradiction in your argument – you say most French don’t care much (which I agree as I have argued above) yet you also say they are among the majority who are anti war – and so are activists. The truth is you grab any ordinary person getting on with their lives and say ‘what do you think of…’ and that will probably be the first time that they would think about it – we simply do not think any more about things we presume do not affect us.

Realpolitic rules the democratic world. We vote for someone who votes for someone to do the jobs we think must be done by the state. I don’t want to clean the streets but I do think it’s a job that must be done. I don’t want to police the community but someone has to and work out how – so you vote. Well part of that bargain is the politician saying ‘ yes I will plan all that that for you and everything else you don’t have time for – I know your interests, give me your mandate and I will act for you’ so you vote for them and they make decisions.

Fine if its your politician but democracy says you may not always get what you want and sometimes you have to accept someone else has got the job – and if you don’t vote, well that’s a position too and akin to a baby throwing out its rattle for the cot. Democracy is the only tool ‘allowed’ so change must come from within.

I am not getting started with the problems of Democracy (many) but the reality is it is here and when it comes down to decisions affecting us all it is a case of some you win and some you loose. If you cite a referendum then who decides what is suitable for a referendum? Why not every decision? Then we have no need of government! But we will never have enough time to work as we will be voting 20 times a day.

This is long so I will end, but on a cliché, I have nothing against French people, some of my best friends are French, but NONE of them are polititians…

Vive L'Entente Cordiale.