Chirac, Jospin square up for battle

Twin financial scandals involving France's two leading political parties have claimed their second casualty this week - peaceful co- habitation between Gaullist President Jacques Chirac and the Socialist Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Jospin.

Judges are investigating the use of funds by Mr Chirac's RPR party while he was mayor of Paris between 1977 and 1995. Mr Jospin's close friend, Mr Dominique Strauss-Kahn, resigned as finance minister on Tuesday after allegations that he forged documents to extricate himself from a fake job scandal at the MNEF, France's largest student health insurance fund, which is close to the Socialist Party.

The day after Mr StraussKahn's resignation, Mr Jospin warned Mr Chirac privately that if the President tried to exploit the scandal to harm him, he would fight back.

That same afternoon, a Gaullist deputy nonetheless asked Mr Jospin in the National Assembly whether students' money was used to finance Socialist Party campaigns or to help "certain of your friends" while Mr Jospin headed the party.

The Prime Minister categorically denied that the MNEF financed the Socialist Party, but admitted some Socialist politicians might have "to explain their situation". Then, in a clear allusion to the city of Paris under Mr Chirac's administration, he said: "If you are looking for an organised system, where the functioning of the institution and the functioning of the party . . . were intimately linked for 20 years, don't look at me!"

Mr Chirac announced his "surprise" at this on Wednesday evening. "The President of the Republic . . . notes that insinuation never serves the truth and that if something must be said, it should be said frankly and clearly," his statement said.

So Mr Chirac and Mr Jospin's 2002 presidential election contest is off to a venomous start. The President is said to consider his rival's volatile temper to be his greatest weakness.

To drive the point home, Mr Chirac noted in his statement that "the conduct of public affairs demands self-control and sang-froid on the part of all political leaders."