The NPA and France’s political-financial scandals


By Pierre Mabut and Alex Lantier
WSWS
19 November 2009


France’s political-financial scandals present a striking contrast that demands explanation. On the one hand, there is the high rank of the main defendants—ex-President Jacques Chirac, ex-Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, and ex-Interior Minister Charles Pasqua—and the seriousness of the underlying crimes: the illegal funding of France’s murderous stooge regimes in Africa and massive kickbacks in international weapons sales. Objectively, these trials constitute an indictment of French imperialism.

On the other hand, the bulk of the charges against the defendants are minor and technical. Chirac is charged with illegally funding a few dozen jobs for political appointees as mayor of Paris, and Villepin is charged with considering a plot to slander current President Nicolas Sarkozy with faked bank records. No one has risen to protest what is, in effect, a cover-up of the real crimes.

The near-total silence of France’s “far leftâ€