Oil, Arms and Adultery in France

...Another question to be investigated is whether any of the weapons sold to Dos Santos found their way into Rwanda during the genocidal war between the Hutus and Tutsis...

...Le Floch-Prigent, for his part, denies having had any knowledge that Deviers-Joncour worked for Elf...

...Mitterrand Junior left the Elysée in 1992 and set up shop as a consultant...

...A few politicians and journalists, such as Socialist Deputy Arnaud de Montebourg, Le Monde editor Jean-Marie Colombani, and Maurice Druon, the Secretary of the French Academy, believe there is an urgent need to look into the weaknesses of French institutions, to try and determine how it is possible for a handful of companies and individuals to operate as a state-within-a-state, with an utter contempt for legality...

...The examining magistrates in charge of the case, Eva Joly and Laurence Vichnievsky, have sought to assess how they were recruited and why...

...From oil...

...Did the President discuss African affairs with his former Interior Minister...

...Even so, they will be considered to have indirectly contributed to the genocide on moral if not legal grounds...

...In an interview Mitterrand Junior gave the Nouvel Observateur, he portrayed the investigating magistrate, Philippe Courroye, as "exuding hatred from every pore...

...Skven's return was expected to throw light on this complex operation...

...In an interview in the daily Le Monde on February 21, Pasqua acknowledged that he periodically met privately with the President, who was worried about terrorist threats...

...One involves a former Foreign Minister's glamorous mistress, Asian contracts for frigates, and nefarious oil deals...

...A decision on the fate of those being tried is to be handed down May 30...

...His address book, secured and partially reproduced by the weekly Paris Match when he was arrested, reads like a Who's Who of French public life...

...Two other cases under investigation are more damaging to the credibility of Chirac's Rally for the Republic Party (RPR) and Jospin's Socialist Party (SP) than to them personally...

...In addition, he is accused of having received $26,000 in cash and several expensive gifts from Falcone...

...Her biggest success, according to her, was persuading Dumas, then Socialist President François Mitterrand's Foreign Minister, to change his mind about opposing the sale of frigates to Taiwan in 1991...

...It is precisely this kind of connection that makes some people, including former Interior Minister Jean-Pierre Chevènement, hostile to present plans to grant more decentralization for Corsica that would permit a measure of financial autonomy...

...Sorting Out the Scandals Oil, Arms and Adultery in France By Janice Valls-Russell Paris WITHOUT ACTUALLY saying so, Jacques Chirac, France's neo-Gaullist President, and Lionel Jospin, his Socialist Prime Minister, are limbering up for next year's presidential race...

...In the view of these critics, this would merely enable the island to step up one of its most profitable activities, money laundering...

...In 1992, for reasons that were never clearly explained, he resigned and henceforth distanced himself from the President and his cohort...

...From 1989 to 1993, he was Director for General Affairs at Elf and he is described by other members of management as having been Le Floch-Prigent's right-hand man...

...They took place in a secluded property 15 miles outside Paris that had been owned by Mitterrand's friend Raillard before it was bought by Elf...

...Pasqua served as Interior Minister in 1986-88 and 1993-95, in the two Center-Right governments Mitterrand was forced to cohabit with after the SP and its Communist allies lost their majority in the National Assembly...

...His mother, Danielle Mitterrand, called the bail a "ransom...

...Elf apparently "loaned" her to another company, Thompson, to lobby for this on its behalf...

...Dubbed "President Sirven" in Africa, he was reputedly known on that continent for redistributing "special funds" to people and organizations—and, while at Elf, for helping himself to commissions on every barrel of oil it pumped...

...Furthermore, France's policy in Africa, with which successive presidents prided themselves on having a "special relationship," appears to have served in part as a cover for economic and financial transactions of an unsavory nature...

...Other sources as well cite Mitterrand's concern to keep both terrorists and the media away from his mistress and his illegitimate daughter, Mazarine, whose existence was only revealed to the public when he was dying...

...He developed strong personal ties with African heads of state like Omar Bongo of Gabon and Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), and was nicknamed "Papamadit" (Daddytold-me) by the French satirical weekly Canard Enchaîné as well as by people in Africa...

...He confirmed the private meetings between Pasqua and Mitterrand...

...The company paid all maintenance costs, too, but allowed Raillard to go on using the property, provided he occasionally hosted meetings...

...Instead, the Defense Ministry lodged an illegal arms trading complaint at the end of January...

...He claims to have alerted Danielle Mitterrand, who vigorously denies ever having had a conversation with him on the subject...

...Pasqua insists, though, that he did not know the meetings with Mitterrand were arranged by Sirven...

...Pasqua himself is of Corsican descent, and the Gabon Corsican clan appears to have ties with some of Corsica's nationalists...

...That type of behavior usually elicits a statement of protest from the Justice Ministry...

...Raillard, who was also receiving a salary from EAI, has told of "discreet," top-level rendezvous between French officials and foreign leaders, mostly from Africa, the Arab world and Eastern Europe...

...This suggests the government may be willing to let the inquiry run its full course...

...He denies the charges and claims never to have wondered how Deviers-Joncour earned her living or financed the buying of a spacious flat in the heart of chic Paris...

...Sirven also headed ElfAquitaine International (EAI), a Swiss branch of the petroleum company that's said to have illicitly paid salaries and kickbacks to people associated with France's leading politicians...

...An attempt by his and Falcone's lawyers to have the proceedings suspended because of legal niceties was rejected...

...And if not Elf, Alfred Sirven...

...The court then adjourned to allow his lawyers time to prepare his defense...

...Some of the questions being asked now are: Where did the Angolan President, José Eduardo Dos Santos, get the $500 million he paid Falcone for arms...

...What the entire sorry, ongoing mess illustrates is that corruption has been tolerated, even encouraged, in the highest political spheres...

...Parliamentary investigations into France's role in Africa and the extent of Elf's action on that Continent and elsewhere could also help the magistrates in their task, if only by showing them that they are not the only ones concerned about the ethics of French public life...

...In a television interview he strenuously denied the accusations, but he has rejected suggestions that he appear in court to answer questions on the subject...

...These have all the ingredients of cheap thrulers...

...If so, was Elf involved...

...What is apparent so far is that they seem to lead to senior personalities of the neo-Gaullist and Socialist camps...

...According to journalists who have seen the complete book, it con tains the private telephone numbers and direct lines of some 200 leading personalities...

...Fees" had been paid into the same account by Elf, but Mitterrand apparently "forgot" to declare this income and pay taxes on it...

...None have been directly linked to Chirac or Jospin...

...Barring the unexpected, each will be his party's candidate...

...An elegant woman in her 40s, Deviers-Joncour, who spent some time in prison pending the trial, startled and delighted the public in 1998 when she published La Putain de la République (The Republic's Whore), in which she describes her activities...

...At the end of this past January, the trial of several people connected with Elf opened in Paris...

...One of the clan's members donated heavily to the RPF's campaign during the 1999 European election via bank accounts in Switzerland and Monaco...

...Magistrate Courroye and his colleague Isabelle Prévost-Desprez are now investigating whether Falcone illegally subsidized the Rally for France (RPF), the breakaway party Pasqua created when he quit the neo-Gaullists in 1998...

...Shortly afterward a Corsican clan moved into Libreville and set up the country's first horse racing pools, which they control to this day...

...He arrived in Paris on February 6, breezed into court the next day, kissed Deviers-Joncour on the cheek and shook hands with Dumas and Le FlochPrigent...

...The National Assembly has set up a committee to investigate money laundering...

...Sirven ultimately refused to testify when his demands for a new trial were denied, and the court proceedings concluded in mid-March...

...Those in the box included a former Executive Director of the company, Loïk Le Floch-Prigent, a former Foreign Minister and President of the Constitutional Court, RolandDumas, and the latter's ex-mistress, Christine Deviers-Joncour...

...If there are any career-crippling surprises, they might come from the courtroom...

...Last December 1, the Brenco executive was charged with illegally selling $500 million worth of arms to Angola and was imprisoned...

...Prime Minister Jospin and his government have maintained an embarrassed silence about the two affairs, even when Jean-Christophe Mitterrand publicly attacked the magistrates conducting the Angola case...

...But the President's image has been dented by allegations that during his 20 years as Mayor of Paris, the office he held before moving on to the Elysée Palace, he arranged to have a number of people—some reports say as many as 100—hired by the city for nonexistent jobs...

...Should this ever be established, Falcone and Mitterrand can be expected to deny having had any knowledge of the use the weapons would be put to after the sale...

...Like Mitterrand Junior, Pasqua was for a time doing business in Africa...

...These "consultants,'· as Sirven calls them, included DeviersJoncour, Daniel Leandri, a man close to former neo-Gaullist Interior Minister Charles Pasqua and to Laurent Raillard, a retired doctor and friend of François Mitterrand...

...After Mitterrand was released on bail, Abbé Pierre, an 88-year-old priest who has done a lot for France's homeless, told the Center-Right daily Figaro that in 1996 two Zairian bishops had warned him of Mitterrand's murky African contacts and shockingly lavish lifestyle there...

...It is similarly hard to believe that Jospin knew nothing about the Dumas-DeviersJoncour relationship or Jean-Christophe Mitterrand's African escapades...

...He became very popular in Gabon in 1992 when, as head of a district in the Paris area, he financed public works projects in Gabon's capital, Libreville...

...In return, Dumas allegedly received artworks, a $1,700 pair of handmade shoes and other luxury gifts from Deviers-Joncour...

...In 1997-98, $2.3 million was deposited in a Swiss bank account for him by Pierre Falcone, the Executive Director of Brenco International, an arms company...

...The walls enclosing the property were raised and security gates were installed at Elf's expense...

...The second, an apparent illegal arms deal with Angola, has at its center a former FrenchPresident's son, shady Corsican connections and arms sales to Africa, with possible oil interests there too...

...They are generally credited with being members of the Socialist Party who are paid salaries for fictitious posts...

...In '86 Penne left and Jean-Christophe took his place...

...The Elysée team's concern for secrecy and thirst for information led to a telephone-tapping unit being set up in the palace itself...

...French judges and magistrates are investigating various intricate affairs whose ramifications have not all been unraveled yet...

...In a surprise twist, Sirven was arrested in the Philippines at the beginning of February and flown back to France...

...On December 21 Jean-Christophe Mitterrand was arrested, but he was released January 11 on $700,000 bail...

...It is hard to believe that François Mitterrand, for instance, did not know that the house where he met Pasqua had been bought from his golfing companion, Raillard, by Elf...

...The same is true of Chirac and former Prime Minister Edouard Balladur concerning Pasqua, who served under them as Interior Minister...

...Sirven is accused of having spent roughly $300 million of the company's money in a variety of dubious ways, and of financing an opulent lifestyle for himself...

...As a former Secretary General of the Socialist Party and an Education Minister from 1988 to 1992, Jospin occupied a privileged position on the Mitterrand team...

...It has been easy forpeople in the Mitterrand entourage to insinuate that the old priest's grip is slipping, especially since he lost much of his credibility in political circles some years ago when he sided with Roger Garaudy, an anti-Semitic Communist-turned-Muslim...

...She has said she was recruited by Alfred Sirven, who fled France in 1997...

...Janice Valls-Russell writes about French and Spanish affairs for the NL...

...Still, he remains popular across the country...

...The extent of the Elf and Angola affairs is such that the inevitable question is: Who knew what...

...The pains he has taken to appear as a champion of ethics in public life are at odds with the way his party continues to work: University faculty and staff in other public organizations regularly grumble in private about "colleagues" whom one never sees...

...Mitterrand, however, was not alone in benefiting from Falcone's largess...

...The best service Jospin and Chirac could do for themselves and the country would be to actively encourage a largescale investigation into corruption...

...Among his activities, Sirven may have helped to arrange secret meetings between Pasqua and François Mitterrand from 1991 to 1993...

...The Pasqua-Mitterrand connection resurfaces, albeit more tenuously, in what is known here as "the Angolan arms deal...

...While serving as Dumas' parliamentary assistant, she says, she was paid by Elf to lobby political personalities for its own interests and those of other companies...

...From 1982 to 1986 Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, the late President's eldest son, worked at the Elysée Palace as assistant to Guy Penne, his father's adviser for African affairs...

...A second clan member is a former executive of Elf in Gabon...

...An arrogant man given to self-promotion, he has boasted that he knows enough about France's political class to "explode the Republic 20 times over...

...Named after France's nationalized petroleum company, ElfAquitaine, it is generally called the Elf affair...