France:Jacques Chirac was placed under formal investigation yesterday for embezzlement of public funds during his time as mayor of Paris, making him the first former French president to be named a suspect in a criminal inquiry.
The investigation into Mr Chirac's role in the creation of fictitious jobs attached to the mayor's office was triggered after a second round of questioning by an examining magistrate.
Formal investigation is a preliminary stage that could lead to charges and a trial. Mr Chirac's immunity from prosecution expired in June, six weeks after he vacated the Élysée Palace.
The case involves some 20 jobs, paid with public funds and notionally related to the city hall, that were allegedly given to sympathisers of Mr Chirac's centre-right RPR party during his mayoralty from 1977 to 1995.
As the judges prepared to open their formal investigation of Mr Chirac, he wrote an article for yesterday's Le Monde in which he said he had acted properly: "never were city of Paris funds used to further ambitions other than serving Parisians."
He had recruited extra staff because of the mayor's expanding responsibilities and because of his additional political roles during the period, including that of member of parliament, prime minister and president of the RPR party.
When Mr Chirac was first questioned as a witness in the affair on July 19th, he wrote an article for the same newspaper, explaining that "old habits" of party financing were the product of a "context that is no longer properly understood". - (Financial Times service)