THE high-flying habits of the French President’s family are again under scrutiny after evidence emerged that his wife, Bernadette, benefited from air travel worth £26,000.
The Paris fraud squad is examining accounts showing that Mme Chirac, 71, made six return-trips from Paris to Brive, near the family’s seat in the rural Corrèze, on charter jets operated by Euralair in 1998 and 1999, according to the newspaper Le Parisien. The office of Mme Chirac, who is a member of a Corrèze county council, declined to comment on the report.
On one of the day-returns, costing £4,300, Mme Chirac attended the cooking of the world’s biggest mushroom omelette, Le Parisien said. It published a copy of the flight bills, saying that they were a gift from Euralair, a Paris charter company that was closed by bankruptcy last year.
The presidential charter trips became news in July, with reports that investigators were checking claims from the company’s staff that the Chiracs and their daughter, Claude, had benefited from free use of Euralair aircraft.
Euralair was headed by Alexandre Couvelaire, an associate of M Chirac. Investigators suspect that the management misused company funds.
Advertisement
Le Parisien said yesterday: “For the first time there is firm evidence of the claims that former employees have been making.” It quoted a former Euralair pilot as saying that the Chiracs had taken many more free flights but that records had been destroyed.
The newspaper noted that Mme Chirac was not protected by the presidential immunity that has prevented judges from pursuing previous allegations of sleaze against the President. Free flights could be an abuse of corporate funds; receiving them could amount to receiving the proceeds of embezzlement, Le Parisien said.
It seems likely that the matter will eventually be shelved, along with the other allegations of sleaze that have long dogged M Chirac. An appeal court last week heard a request from Bertrand Delanoë, the Mayor of Paris, to reinstate an inquiry into taxpayers’ funds used to feed the Chirac household while he was at the city hall. M Chirac was mayor from 1977 to 1995.
In 2001 M Chirac, who became President in 1995, acknowledged that he had paid thousands of pounds for air travel and holidays. The cash had been acquired legitimately from state funds used to top up ministerial salaries, he said.
In July Le Canard Enchaîné said: “As astonishing as it may appear, Chirac carried on using the Euralair network after his arrival at the Elysée. As recently as the 2002 election campaign, the family used a Euralair jet without charge to take them on a visit to Le Havre.”