A Magouille of Maires.....

Image by Sénat via Flickr

Most maires like the sound of their own voices...give them a vin d'honneur and they're away....usually for what seems like hours... while those present shuffle and cough as a hint that it's time to cut the cackle and get down to the business of the day, which is to attack the tables laden with bottles and glasses.

The speech is the tax you pay for free drink and, as with all taxes in France, it is too high.

You have to pity Sarkozy, though...he had to attend the maires'  national conference and the power of the oratory was such that he dropped off to sleep.

No vin d'honneur for him then.

While tedium seems to be obligatory, some maires display other talents.....talents variously described  as...

Arranging things....or

Promoting their commune's interests....or as I see it

Cronyism.

There are also maires whose peculiar talent leads them to aptly be known as the fathers of their communes, but that's a different story.

To return to the arrangers of things....

For some years now, local councils have been obliged to seek tenders for projects costing serious money, rather than just passing it to the local guy on the grounds that as he was paying the Taxe Professionelle to the commune he was entitled to anything the commune had to offer in terms of the folding stuff.
Or doing it on a Buggins turn principle if there was more than one eligible firm.
Or putting the job Jacques' way as he will in return plaster the walls of your daughter's house with the 'surplus' materials.

Needless to say, this system does not always suit the arrangers of things, so they 'arrange' not to do it properly, which may account in some way for the spick and span 'arrangement' of the arrangers' houses and gardens....

Depressingly, in France this appears to be accepted as the norm, and people just shrug if it is mentioned...
What else, after all, can one expect?
Well, personally I expect a great deal better but I didn't grow up in France.

Recently a case has come to light where a whistleblower denounced a maire and his commune's financial director for questionable dealings with tenders for public works....quoting twelve instances.
This happened six years ago and in the meantime the whistleblower has been sacked.
No vin d'honneur for him either.

You can judge the lack of importance attached to questionable dealings with public money by the time it has taken the prosecuting authorities to get round to prosecuting, although you have to take into account that the prosecutors are appointed by the government and that the political complexion of government and maire are as one.

These things matter more than you might think...

I remember the local bypass.
It was to bypass a town which voted right wing.
So, under a right wing government the finds were voted and works started, involving a forty mile detour unless you knew that you could nip up the lane just before the roadworks and emerge on another main road leading to town.

Then the government changed to a left wing one.
The funds were diverted to start a bypass for a town which voted left.
The forty mile detour to get to the right wing town stayed in place for years...until the government changed again and the funds returned to finish the job.

Still, in this case, after due deliberation and after the maire stood down at the last elections, the prosecutors decided to go ahead with one charge from the original twelve, relating to the development of a housing estate in the commune.
Getting wind of this, one of the firms who had lost out on the tender jumped in on the act, claiming 50,000 euros in damages, this being the value of the works in question from which it would appear that they had been illegally excluded.

The by now ex maire, his financial director and the firm to whom the tender was awarded appeared before the prosecutor, who proposed to deal with them under a fairly recent procedure by which you admit your guilt, the prosecutor proposes a sentence which you accept and you just pass before a judge to have him or her confirm or alter the sentence.
Saves public money and does not give rise to indiscreet enquiry as to why the prosecutor is not asking many questions of the accused... .

The ex maire and his financial director happily accepted the slap on the hand of a 1,500 Euro fine each and walked away.
The boss of the firm concerned didn't.
He can expect a nasty day in court, not so much for what he is supposed to have done, but for not being cooperative.

The judge confirmed the sentences, but refused to allow the firm which had lost out on the tender to start proceedings to recover from the three 'defendants' the 50,000 Euros they reckon winning the contract would have earned them.

Their lawyer is most annoyed.

The court is unmoved.

The ex maire is still in the same political party.

The financial director still holds the same job with the commune.

The whistleblower stays sacked.

Why does this annoy me?
Why don't I just show how integrated I have become by shrugging?

Because it's my money and the money of people like me that these chaps are messing about with.
There is a system which is supposed to eliminate cronyism...it is defied...and the perpetrators walk away with just a slight dent in their well filled pocketbooks.

I haven't forgotten the interesting case of cronyism in another commune where an historic building was to be restored.
Apart from the usual performance in which the departmental architect of Batiments de France (think English Heritage) reduced a thirteenth century interior to something resembling a kitchen from Bricodepot, it stuck in my mind because of the electrical installations...or, rather, the lack of them.

The building was set well away from the village, out in the fields and all the restoration work was carried out using a generator.
Including provision for power and lighting in the building.

Some months after the job was finished, EDF rolled up and dug up the road to the village to provide power.
The spotlights in the roof could be used.
I said it was like a kitchen from Bricodepot.

Some months after that the fields between the building and the village miraculously acquired planning permission and were bought by the commune to set up a new housing estate....

Who was the lucky owner?
The then maire's wife's cousin.

Mark you, I could just be getting a bit cynical here.
The commune in question was in hillbilly country, and it demonstrated the ability of the French to be in the forefront of technical advancement.
Long before anyone had come up with cloning from biological material the hillbillies had come up with it by decades of inbreeding.....everyone in an age cohort looked like everyone else in that cohort and everyone was closely related to everyone else.
So it might be difficult to avoid doing a favour to someone to whom your wife was related.
But the timing of the arrival of  EDF still leaves me wondering....

And then there are cases where cronyism has fatal consequences. But not for the cronies.

The local council of La Faute sur Mer on the Atlantic coast, scene of 29 deaths when the sea breached the defences and overran a housing development, is one to keep an eye on, thanks to the close links between those owning land which was well known to be liable to flood, those awarding planning permission to build houses on the said land and those involved in marketing the said houses.

According to the maire's lawyer...one of the best known and accordingly expensive in France... the deaths lie at the door of the Prefet, for not ordering an evacuation in time.
Personally I think that the responsibility lies with those who knowingly or negligently made that land available for housing, but we'll see what the prosecutors make of it all.....just don't hold your breath waiting for them.
La Faute sur Mer votes the right way.

Not that it acts the right way.
Most of the people who bought houses on that development were not local....mostly townspeople looking to retire to the seaside......so most of the dead were not from local families.
The survivors and the families of those who died have started an association to push for an enquiry into the events leading to the deaths and for proper compensation for those whose houses have been declared to be only fit to be destroyed.
Local people do not appreciate the activities of the association.....graffiti painted on the walls of houses owned by members...more graffiti on the walls of the cemetery where most of those who died in the floods were buried, encouraging locals to support the maire.....and, horribly, a woman visiting her father's grave spat on and insulted.

This illustrates the 'us and them' mentality so prevalent in French country communes where until relatively recently there was little social diversity and where the 'incomers' be they French or foreign, were regarded as prey, for the benefit of locals.
That a 'local' can feel in a strong enough position to spit on and insult the grieving  daughter of an 'incomer' tells you all you need to know about where power lies in la Faute sur Mer.

It also illustrates why the elimination of cronyism has an importance greater than that of misuse of public money.......
Cronyism defies the spirit of equality, equality of treatment.......

But what am I thinking about?
This is France....where equality is only a word painted above the door of the mairie.

Now I know why he got rid of the dog...

Image via Wikipedia

Some time ago, it was reported...and commented upon....that ex-President Chirac was getting rid of his dog, a bichon given him by his grandson, which had apparently turned vicious when deprived of life in the Presidential palace and confined to a luxury apartment in Paris paid for by M. Chirac's foreign friends.
I wondered at the time whatever was going on in the Chirac household, and now we have the answer.

They could not afford to feed it.
No wonder it was taking a grab at the ex-Presidential stomach...it was hoping for something to eat.

Before Monsieur Chirac became Monsieur le President, he was Monsieur le Maire....Mayor of Paris.
In those palmy days, the municipality of Paris awarded its' maire an allowance of some 3,000 francs - about 375 pounds - a day - to maintain himself and his family above the poverty line.
You can buy quite a bit of dog food with that.

Appreciative of being so well treated, Mr. Chirac spread the goodwill about.
As Mayor, he sought to improve local services by having the council 'employ' some 500 consultants....a number of whom, not unnaturally, belonged to the same political party as the Maire.
Unkind tongues suggested that some of these consultants did very little or nothing for their money.
Which was probably as well since few of them had any qualifications which would fit them for these posts.

If only Edith Cresson - other side of the political divide from Mr. Chirac - had had the sense just to pay her dentist instead of giving him a consultancy job when she was a European Commissioner.....and then getting the poor man to produce a report on something of which it was evident he knew nothing....she might not have had to resign.
Mr. Chirac was more intelligent. His - sorry, the city of Paris' - consultants stayed mum and Mr. Chirac stayed mayor.

Then Mr. Chirac became Monsieur le President and moved into the Elysee Palace, his official residence.
He and his family continued to be maintained above the poverty line, but this time the whole country paid, not just the Parisians.
He could afford to feed the dog his grandson gave him.

Unfortunately, his successor as Mayor of Paris, while being of the same political persuasion as President Chirac, followed the consultancy practices of Madame Cresson.
He asked his consultants...who included his wife...to produce something with which to justify their fees.
The results were as one might imagine.
People noticed.
Unkind tongues began to wag again, and investigative magistrates started poking their noses where no self respecting person would poke the end of their walking sticks...into the internal affairs of the city of Paris.
They came to the conclusion that not only had the then maire paid people who produced no benefit whatsoever to the city of Paris but that his predecessor, Mr. Chirac had done so too.

Fictitious employment was the term used.

The maire of Paris found himself in legal hot water.
But not Mr. Chirac.
He was by then, after all, President Chirac, and the President of France has immunity from being hauled before French courts.

Time passed...a young politician called Sarkozy started dating the President's daughter before dumping her for being too dumpy.
Relations became strained between Mr. Chirac and Mr. Sarkozy.

President Chirac finally called it a day and gave his backing to his unelected Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, as the candidate to succeed him in preference to Mr. Sarkozy.
Dirty tricks dogged the Sarkozy campaign, but he became the party's candidate and, in his turn, President.

President Sarkozy took great umbrage at the dirty tricks campaign, and was delighted when it was suggested to investigative magistrates  that Mr. de Villepin had been instrumental in organising some of them  as discussed here.
While it was suggested that Mr.Chirac might have information which would assist Mr. de Villepin, he was not called upon to testify, and did not volunteer any information either.
Mr. de Villepin was exonerated and the state is appealing the verdict.

Investigative magistrates have long memories.
Having patiently waited during the years of the immunity from prosecution of President Chirac, once he was again just Mr. Chirac they reopened the dossier and found that, in their view, public money had been improperly used in 21 cases of fictitious employment while Mr. Chirac had been M. le Maire.

Mr. Chirac denies all impropriety, and the state prosecutor appears to side with him, stating that he sees no case to answer, but the city of Paris, under new political management, launched a civil claim for 2.2 million euros which is what it reckons the fictitious employment cost the ratepayers of Paris.

President Sarkozy went to see Mr. Chirac recently, to discuss the problem and it appears that a solution has been found.

Mr. Chirac has announced that, while he did nothing wrong, he is willing to repay the money on condition that the city of Paris drops its' civil claim.
The City of Paris has been happy to do so.
That leaves just the prosecutor...who is convinced of Mr. Chirac's innocence.... to plead the case before the court, so there doesn't appear to be much risk from that quarter.

Questions remain, however.
Why, if innocent, would Mr. Chirac offer to pay up?
And how is Mr. Chirac, whose daily subsistence is no longer being paid by the taxpayer, to find such a huge sum?
He'd have to economise on an awful lot of dog biscuits.

It's not as if he can do much to reduce his expenses.

He is living on the charity of his friends as it is.
His friends pay for the frequent flights in first class to Japan for himself and his family, where he is rumoured to be very interested in the interior decor of a bank.....
They allow him to squat in a luxury apartment in Paris.....
So the only way in which he could possibly economise was to part with the dog.

Not that the dog was capable of eating 2.2 million euros worth of biscuits.
Ridiculous even to think so.
The little bichon could only consume 550,000 Euros' worth...the sum Mr. Chirac is proposing to pay from his own pocket.

The rest of the money?

Well, this is coming from the UMP, the party of both President Sarkozy and ex-President Chirac.
I am not convinced that the party faithful are too chuffed about money on this scale being handed over to the socialists who control Paris at the moment, any more than I am convinced that President Sarkozy would have willingly rescued his predecessor, but this is politics, after all.

Sarkozy is not too popular with his party after the regional election debacle, and needs to sooth the troubled breasts....thus his support for the idea of supporting Chirac, idol of the bottom patting classes.
Cows that is.
At agricultural shows.

What about the party faithful?
Well, they won't want an innocent man to be financially broken by the demands of his political opponents, but it must be a blow to the party finances.
Thanks to the revelations spilling over from internecine strife in the family of the Oreal heiress, it seems that folding money in brown envelopes was used to finance quite a bit of UMP activity.....even though all large donations are supposed to be declared and very large donations are banned, as tending to notions of corruption.
However, there are other ways.
Almost every French politician worth naming has his own political party, apart from the one he supports.
These micro parties campaign for donations, and then, quite legitimately, pass these on to the main party set up...in this case, the UMP.

So the money necessary to rescue Mr. Chirac from the consequences of what he has not done will be forthcoming without too much pain, although the sale of brown envelopes will be on the rise as the well heeled await the visit of their local politician.

This case makes you count your blessings.

When you're sitting at home this winter, in the part of the house you can afford to heat contemplating the electricity bill with the cat on your knee, just imagine what it must be like to be an ex-President, dependent on others for the very roof over your head and forced to part with a beloved pet.

Your heart bleeds, doesn't it?