May 1995 — Jacques Chirac is elected president, ending 14 years of socialist presidency.
June 1997 — Lionel Jospin becomes prime minister.
October 1999 — Xaviere Tiberi, wife of the mayor of Paris, goes on trial on charges of corruption. She is accused of fiscal mismanagement for illegally receiving more than 200,000 francs (US$44,693) of public funds for writing a 36-page report that, according to the investigative magistrates, is worthless. Correspondents say the case is deeply embarrassing for the Chirac administration, which has been accused of using public funds to pay hundreds of supporters for phony jobs.
March 15, 2000 — The French conservative party, Rally for the Republic (RPR — Rassemblement pour la République), headed by President Chirac, suspends the mayor of Paris, Jean Tiberi, as head of its branch in the city after revelations of 1,000 nonexistent members in the local party membership files.
September 2000 — Le Monde publishes the transcript of a confession made by a property developer and operative of RPR, Jean-Claude Mery. He made a videotape in 1996 when he was under investigation for a corruption scandal. In his confession, he described Chirac's successful attempts at a bribery scheme to finance his political party in the 1980s when he was mayor of Paris. Mery was in charge of operations in which building companies gave under-the-table donations to RPR in return for public-works contracts, which Chirac was allegedly completely aware of.
A weekly magazine reports that the master copy of the tape is in the possession of former Finance Minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a friend of Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. Strauss-Kahn acquired the tape through a tax-lawyer friend, Alain Belot, according to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). In exchange, Strauss-Kahn used his influence as finance minister to cut a massive tax bill of one of Belot's most famous clients, Karl Lagerfeld.
President Chirac denies allegations that he was aware of the kickbacks paid to his party while he was mayor of Paris.
May 2001 — Roland Dumas, former foreign minister, is sentenced to six months in jail for his role in the Elf Affair; his conviction is overturned on appeal.
Dumas is accused of illegally receiving public funds from Elf Acquitaine, a state-owned oil company, transferred through his former girlfriend, Christine Deviers-Joncour. Deveirs-Joncour and two top Elf executives, president of Elf Loik Le Floch-Prigent and second-in-command Alfred Sirven, are also jailed for misusing funds in the embezzlement scandal. Millions of dollars of bribes in political funds are believed to have been transferred from corporate accounts. The money was channeled through Deviers-Joncour to lobby Dumas for political support. She had given Dumas luxurious gifts worth more than US$40,000. The prosecution also alleges that Dumas helped Deviers-Joncour attain a highly paid job at Elf and then benefited from the wealth she acquired as a result.
Deviers-Joncour says that Elf paid her several million dollars to influence Dumas to drop his objections over the sale of six frigates to Beijing. Elf Acquitaine traditionally had a strong influence on French foreign policy and has been staffed by former military officers and spies. US$600,000 million was paid in commissions to French government employees to sanction the deal, reports the International Herald Tribune.
Dumas's conviction is overturned in January 2003, but accompanying convictions of two Elf executives and Deviers-Joncour are not, sparking criticism of an apparent double standard.
October 2001 — Strauss-Kahn is charged with allegations of forgery two years after he was forced to resign from the government when the allegations first came to light. Strauss-Kahn is accused of forging bills for work he carried out for an insurance fund before becoming finance minister. Prosecutors in the case believe he did in fact carry out the work for which he submitted the bills, but the bills themselves were forgeries.
February 2002 — More than 40 people are named in an official report of the Elf corruption scandal, which has proven to be France's biggest corruption case. Among those named is former interior minister and current presidential candidate, Charles Pasqua.
November 2003 — Le Floch-Prigent and Sirven are found guilty on charges of using company money as bribes paid to Leuna Oil Refinery executives in eastern Germany, and are sentenced to jail.
Elf allegedly paid secret commissions worth 256 million francs (US$55.3 million) to Pierre Lethier, a Frenchman, and Dieter Holzer, a German, both former intelligence operatives who were used to funnel the money to Germany.
According to the International Herald Tribune, Lethier reported that a financial "plot" about money being transferred by the order of former French President Francois Mitterand to the political slush fund of Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany was fake. It was allegedly invented by top Elf executives who wanted to hide more than 60 million francs (US$13 million) in bribes that they acquired from commissions paid in Liechtenstein. Holzer received US$27.8 million in "consultant fees" to close the Leuna deal.
The court finds that the defendants are responsible for stealing US$346.8 million from Elf to use as kickbacks to ensure business contracts in Africa, South America, Russia, Spain and Germany.
January 2004 — Former Prime Minister Alain Juppe is found guilty on charges of corruption, is given a suspended sentence of 18 months in jail, and is barred from holding political office for 10 years. He is accused of being involved in the funding scam of President Chirac's political party when Chirac was the mayor of France.
Feb. 14, 2004 — Thousands of people march to protest a law banning the Islamic headscarf and other religions apparel in public schools.
Four days before the protests, French legislators vote to ban religious emblems such as Muslim headscarves, the Christian cross and Jewish skullcaps from state schools. This legislative vote follows President Chirac's decision to pass a law banning conspicuous religious symbols in January.
In 2003, the Interior Ministry said there was no plan to change the law, and Education Minister Luc Ferry claimed a ban could be unconstitutional. A range of politicians nevertheless strongly advocated the ban.
Feb. 16, 2004 — Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, spokesman for Chirac's political party, and Francois Leotard, a former defense minister, are convicted of embezzlement of funds in a party finance scandal. Leotard gets a 10-month suspended jail term for using a fake bank scheme to fund his former Republican Party. He allegedly transferred 760,000 euros (US$1.07 million) from a prime ministerial fund to finance a temporarily inactive Republican Party.
Feb. 25, 2005 — Finance Minister Herver Gaymard leaves office because of a scandal concerning his luxurious flat that is paid for with taxpayer money of 14,000 euros (US$19,849) per month. In an interview with Paris Match magazine, Gaymard claimed he always lived humbly. This scandal embarrasses and angers the conservative government, which has enforced unpopular cost-cutting measures as France's economy suffers from a budget deficit and high rates of unemployment.
Gaymard was in charge of a ministry that advocated tighter fiscal policies, asserting France's need to cleanse itself of high public spending, according to the BBC.
After revelations of his expensive lifestyle, the minister leaves the apartment.
June 27, 2005 — The offices of Finance Minister Thierry Breton are searched by the police after they received orders from a judge. The investigation is related to a probe of inaccurate accounting and insider trading by Rhodia, a French chemicals firm, where Breton formerly served as a board member.
Jan. 24, 2006 — Forty-nine businessmen and public housing officials go on trial on charges of taking bribes when President Chirac was mayor of Paris. According to the prosecutors, during the 1980s and 1990s, Housing Department officials received bribes from contractors for licenses to build council housing. The money was allegedly used to finance Chirac's Rally for the Republic party. Chirac denies any wrongdoing and refuses to comment, and he is protected by presidential immunity from standing trial.
May 2006 — Police enter the home of an intelligence official, General Phillipe Rondot, regarding a political scandal. The scandal centers on accusations that Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and President Chirac ordered Rondot to investigate corruption charges against Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy although they knew the charges were not true. Although Rondot asserts the president and prime minister were involved in the affair, both have denied any misconduct.
July 2007 — Former President Chirac is questioned by a magistrate investigating the party-funding scandal. He is believed to be an assisted witness, which means he could eventually face criminal charges if found guilty. Several politicians who were serving under Chirac have already been convicted and sentenced to jail for this particular corruption scandal. Chirac has not been subject to interrogation until now because of his political immunity.
