In a blow to President Jacques Chirac and the future of his governing party, former Prime Minister Alain Juppe was convicted Friday of corruption for a party scheme to create phony City Hall jobs here during part of Chirac’s mayoralty.
Juppe, 58, who is one of Chirac’s closest confidants and was his preferred successor, was sentenced to an 18-month suspended prison term and disqualified from public office for 10 years.
The sentence throws Chirac’s center-right party, which Juppe heads, into turmoil just two months before regional midterm elections and, if upheld, would bar Juppe from seeking the presidency in 2007, if Chirac does not seek a third term.
In a courtroom in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, Juppe whom Chirac once called “the most brilliant man of his generation” stood straight and silent as his name was called and the verdict was announced.
“The tribunal condemns you, sir,” Catherine Pierce, the chief judge, began in reading the sentence.
Her words were met with a collective gasp from the audience in the packed courtroom.
Prosecutors had asked for only an 8-month suspended sentence.
The court also rejected Juppe’s request that a guilty verdict not be entered into his criminal record.
Juppe declined to speak to reporters, who were held back by police officers in riot gear, and left the court through a back door.
Chirac had no comment after the verdict.
But Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin told reporters that he was surprised by the verdict and predicted it would be overturned.
Juppe said earlier this month he would end his political career if he was barred from public office.
Juppe’s lawyer, Francis Szpiner, called the verdict “legally questionable and unjust” and pledged that his client would appeal, which would put Juppe’s sentence in abeyance.
That would allow Juppe to keep, temporarily at least, his triple perches of power as mayor of Bordeaux, a member of parliament and president of Chirac’s party, the Union for a Popular Movement.
In recent years a new generation of tough judges has taken a harder line on corruption, but it is still unusual to win convictions against the political elite or to make them stick.
Juppe, who has proclaimed his innocence, was the most high-profile of 27 people set for trial in a scandal that unfolded during Chirac’s 18-year tenure as mayor of Paris.
The president has avoided a serious judicial inquiry into how much he knew of the payment scheme by claiming immunity from prosecution, which he enjoys until his term runs out.
The court ruled that Juppe knew about and helped promote unsavory ties between City Hall and private companies, which put seven members of the party on their payrolls as fictitious employees between 1989 and 1995 to secure public contracts.
At the time, Juppe was City Hall’s financial director and secretary general of Chirac’s party.
