Jean-Claude Trichet will stand trial on Monday over a decade-old banking scandal that has clouded his prospects of becoming the next president of the European Central Bank.
Trichet, the 60-year-old head of the Bank of France, faces charges of complicity in an alleged cover-up of losses when one of the top world banks, the then state-owned Credit Lyonnais, came close to collapse a decade ago.
One of nine men charged in the affair, Trichet is the focus of international attention because he is due to succeed Dutchman Wim Duisenberg in July as head of the ECB, the central bank that holds sway over inflation and interest rates in the eurozone.
Trial hearings are scheduled to run until mid-February. A verdict would be delivered later.
Ten years on, one of the biggest scandals of post-war France has returned to haunt a man who was in charge of keeping track of the myriad financial dealings of the state as director of the Treasury department of the finance ministry.
His lawyers contest the charge of complicity in publication of misleading Credit Lyonnais accounts for 1992, saying Trichet had neither the precise information nor the power to dictate what the bank reported in its financial results.
Lyonnais embarked on a breakneck expansion in property and Hollywood's MGM cinema studios after Jean-Yves Haberer was named chairman by the Socialist government in the 1988, but ran into deep trouble when the investments went awry.
It spent most of the 1990s on government life support as one rescue package after another was concocted to salvage the bank at a cost of tens of billions of euros to taxpayers before it was privatised in 1999.
After parliamentary inquiry, the matter landed in the hands of the justice system in 1996, and investigating magistrate Philippe Courroye decided last July to send the case to court.
He argues that the accounts deliberately understated the provisions set aside to cover for risky investments so that the bank would not fall foul of European rules on the minimum solvency requirements for banks.
Haberer and two other former executives, Bernard Thiolon and Francois Gille, face charges of publishing misleading accounts and issuing fictitious dividends. Three auditors are also charged with failing to reveal the problems.
Trichet is charged with complicity and a man who worked for him at the Treasury, Jean-Pascal Beaufret - now chief financial officer at French telecoms equipment maker Alcatel - faces similar charges.
Trichet is supposed to take over at the Frankfurt-based ECB under a deal that French President Jacques Chirac struck at a European summit in May 1998 ahead of the formal launch of the ECB and the euro currency that now spans 12 nations.
Chirac wanted Trichet to get the job in the first place but had to settle for an agreement whereby Duisenberg would step down half way through his eight-year term in favour of a Frenchman.
Duisenberg has said he plans to retire on his 68th birthday on July 9, but has since said he could stay on a bit longer if needed to ensure a smooth transition at a central bank which is still in its youth.