Pave: Ex-Jack, The Adventure Continues IV

Le jour 68 de Sarko

Sometimes France is the super greatest nation on the planet.

Nous appartenons à une grande Nation, par son Histoire, mais aussi par les principes sur lesquels elle est fondée. Une Nation qui rayonne dans le monde.

[We belong to a great Nation, by its history, but also by the principles on which she is founded. A Nation which shines in the world.]

Then-Jack, Now Ex-Jack,
extolling the exemplarity of France
18 days into the national riots of 2005
PALAIS DE L'ÉLYSÉE 14 novembre 2005 (Élysée)

Sometimes France is just another messed-up nation.

Il a fallu passer, en quelques années, d'un monde d'usages et d'arrangements à un régime clairement fixé par la loi.

En France, mais aussi aux Etats-Unis, en Allemagne, au Royaume-Uni, les partis ont dû s'adapter à cette nouvelle réalité.

[It was necessary to change, in a few years, from a world of practices and arrangements to a system clearly fixed by the law.

In France, but also in the United States, in Germany, in the United Kingdom, parties had to adapt to this new reality.]

Then-Jack, Now Ex-Jack,
explaining how political corruption everywhere,
hardly France alone, has been discommoded by law
July 19, 2007 (Le Monde)

When it comes to shameless self-excusing, it is hard to top Jack. In a fiercely competitive field (and here and here and here), Jack remains a man apart.

FINANCEMENT POLITIQUE :
CE QUE JE VEUX DIRE AUX FRANÇAIS,
PAR JACQUES CHIRAC
[POLITICAL FINANCING:
WHAT I WANT TO SAY TO THE FRENCH PEOPLE,
BY JACQUES CHIRAC]

19 juillet 2007 (Le Monde) - Au-delà des présentations caricaturales, il y a une réalité : que ce soit à gauche comme à droite, ces dossiers n'ont que très exceptionnellement porté sur des cas d'enrichissement personnel – d'ailleurs sanctionné, parfois lourdement – et les lois mises en place dans cette période assurent aujourd'hui un cadre démocratique exemplaire.

De tout cela, je suis prêt à témoigner et à répondre, témoigner devant l'opinion, répondre devant les juges. Dans les deux cas, je le ferai en conscience.

[Beyond the caricatures, there is a reality: that on the left as on the right, these dossiers only very exceptionally related to cases of personal enrichment -- moreover sanctioned, sometimes heavily -- and the laws put in place during this time ensure an exemplary democratic framework today.

In all this, I am ready to testify and to answer -- to testify before public opinion, to answer the judges. In both cases, I will do so in good conscience.]

CHIRAC DEFENDS ACTIONS AS 'CUSTOMARY' FUND-RAISING

PARIS July 19, 2007 (IHT) - Nine weeks after leaving office, former President Jacques Chirac was formally questioned Thursday about his alleged role in a political funding scandal when he was mayor of Paris long ago.

Chirac, 74, defended himself in a heartfelt open letter to the French people published Thursday in the newspaper Le Monde [see above], saying that the laws governing political financing at the time were murky and that essentially everyone - on the left and the right - was doing creative fund-raising.

Jack:

It was customary to call on the generosity of one and all. Private individuals, whether supporters or not, businesses, or even public budgets, thus contributed to the funding of political groups.

[This included] picking up charges, putting personnel at their disposal or paying the salaries of permanent staff members.

He did not address the question of whether he knew or approved of the practices now under investigation.

Of course, what is at issue is not what was customary at the time, but what was legal at the time. The fact that droves of prominent chiraquiens and minions (and here and here) have been convicted for these customary practices suggests that, unlike Jack, the bench has found standing law sufficiently clear on what was allowable.

Chirac faced more than four hours of questioning in his suite of offices in the seventh arrondissement of Paris by Judge Alain Philibeaux from the court in Nanterre west of Paris. It is the first time in the history of France's Fifth Republic that a former president has been subjected to such judicial questioning.

The former president was questioned as an "assisted witness" in the presence of his lawyer - rather than as an ordinary witness - which means that a formal criminal investigation could be opened against him.

For other posts on the afterlife of Ex-Jack, see here, here, here, and here.

PFFT (What is this?): Graft, no big deal 0 | Never-guilty Ex-Jack heaping glory on Fance 0 | Rayonnement français 0