Paris - Judges investigating a cash-for-airline-tickets scandal involving French President Jacques Chirac announced yesterday they did not have the legal authority to question the head of state, a judicial source said.
The decision follows a speech by Mr Chirac on Bastille Day in which he reiterated his refusal to testify to the judges on the grounds that he is still in office.
He also described the charges as being based on "rumour, suspicion and manipulation".
Mr Chirac is facing one of the toughest tests of his career over the revelation that he paid out hundreds of thousands of francs in cash for foreign trips for himself, his family and friends when he was mayor of Paris in the early 1990s.
The political and legal turbulence he has flown into has also put him on the back foot ahead of presidential elections to be held next year.
Those elections will almost certainly pit the centre-right Mr Chirac against Socialist French Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Jospin, whose camp has been making open and escalating attacks on the president over the affair.
The judges' declaration that they were "not competent" to question Mr Chirac is seen as likely to be taken to appeal by France's state prosecutor, Mr Jean-Pierre Dintilhac, who said July 10th he believed such a hearing was possible.