Jacques Chirac’s embezzlement trial opened yesterday with the 78-year-old former French President absent after a medical report said he suffered from memory loss and was too unwell to attend.
“Absent,” came the reply when the presiding judge called out his name at the start of a trial that should have seen the first French former head of state in the dock since World War II.
Judge Dominique Pauthe ordered the court to retire to discuss the response to the medical report. His options include postponing the case, seeking further medical opinion, or continuing hearings with Mr Chirac represented by lawyers.
The judge is likely to ask for an independent medical report by a doctor not linked to Mr Chirac’s family, a source close to the matter said.
Mr Chirac, best known internationally for his opposition to the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, has been linked to a series of corruption scandals but was never convicted. The right-winger stands accused of illegal party funding ahead of his successful 1995 presidency bid.
If found guilty, he faces up to 10 years in jail and a fine of €150,000 on charges that include embezzlement and breach of trust during the years he served as mayor of Paris.
Mr Chirac is the first French former head of state to face criminal charges since the leader of the collaborationist wartime regime, Marshal Philippe Petain, was convicted of treason after World War II.
He enjoyed immunity from prosecution as President from 1995 to 2007, but the case, which has already seen current Foreign Minister Alain Juppe convicted, has finally caught up with him.
He is accused on two counts of paying members of his political party for non-existent municipal jobs in Paris, where he was mayor from 1977 to 1995.
Mr Chirac, who became France’s best loved politician after leaving office in 2007, avoided the dock in March when lawyers for a co-defendant won a postponement by arguing that certain charges were unconstitutional.
But France’s highest appeals court later over-ruled the challenge.
It appeared that he might again avoid trial after his lawyers said in a statement on Saturday they had submitted a medical report to the presiding judge that said he was medically unfit to attend.
The neurological report drawn up at the request of his family concluded that Mr Chirac was in “a vulnerable condition which will not allow him to answer questions about his past”, Le Monde newspaper said on Saturday.