Investigating magistrates yesterday ordered former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas to stand trial after a two-year inquiry into his role in an alleged kickback scheme, judicial sources said.
The Paris magistrates, Eva Joly and Laurence Vichnievsky, also ordered Christine Deviers-Joncour, Dumas' former mistress, and Loik Le Floch-Prigent, former chairman of oil giant Elf Aquitaine, to appear in court.
Four others, including several former high-ranking Elf executives, must also stand trial, judicial sources said on condition of anonymity.
Christine Deviers-Joncour said Dumas knew that Elf Aquitaine had paid millions of francs in bribery money to her and that he had profited from the payments, it was learned.
Deviers-Joncour said that Dumas had promised in 1989 to find her a job with Elf, then a state-owned company. Elf subsequently hired her to "influence" the minister, putting millions of francs into her bank accounts. She also said that Elf paid 264,000 francs (US$8,000) for a dozen antique Greek statuettes which she gave to Dumas in 1990 after he admired them in an auction catalogue.
According to media reports, the money from Elf was intended to be used by Deviers-Joncour to influence the minister to drop his veto over an order for six frigates for Taiwan.
According to a lawmaker speaking in the legislature in 1998, the contract originally set the price for the six ships at US$357.69 million, with all equipment being shipped to Taiwan for assembly at the China Shipbuilding Corp. But a representative of the French arms-maker Thomson, who had signed the contract, apparently warned that this might create diplomatic problems for France, which risked angering China with the sale.
* Oil giant Elf Aquitaine allegedly paid Christian Deviers-Joncour millions of francs to influence her lover, then-Foreign Minister Roland Dumas, to drop his opposition to an order for six frigates to Taiwan
* French government opposed the sale of the frigates fearing it could have angered China, and created diplomatic problems
* Deviers-Joncour claims Dumas knew she was being paid. He denies the allegations
* Sale of frigates to Taiwan valued at US$473.96 million.
The agreement was later revised so that the ships would be delivered fully built, and raised the price to US$473.96 million.
The legislator urged the Control Yuan and prosecutors to undertake an investigation to see whether "commissions" had been paid.
In a memoir entitled Whore of the Republic, Deviers-Joncour admitted she was paid by Elf to lobby her lover to win approval for a colossal arms deal with Taiwan. Although the book caused a scandal, it stopped well short of implicating Dumas. Deviers-Joncour said that he never gave in to her lobbying.
Deviers-Joncour later recanted that version in an interview with the magazine Paris Match and subsequent statements to investigators.
Deviers-Joncour was to act as "mediator" in efforts to secure the sale, which was subject to an embargo, and she is said to have received 59 million francs (US$8.9 million) from the company.
She is also alleged to have received 14 million francs (just over US$2.1 million) to enable her to buy a luxury apartment in Paris.
Dumas, a close confidant of former French President Francois Mitterrand, has denied the allegations. He has "for the time being" given up his office as president of the Constitutional Court but has not relinquished it.
The trial of the 77-year-old former Socialist minister is expected to take place in about six months. Deviers-Joncour and three Aquitaine managers are also being charged.
Elf Aquitaine is also embroiled in a scandal surrounding the Christian Democrat party of former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.
There have been persisting reports that it paid up to 30 million marks (US$15.1 million) to acquire the Leuna oil refinery and the Minol petrol station network in the former East Germany.
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