Appeal threatens to reveal scale of French corruption

Defendants in a corruption appeal trial that began yesterday are threatening to blow the whistle on the alleged shady dealings of successive French governments in selling arms and negotiating oil rights in Asia and Africa.

The most complex and the most colourful corruption saga in recent French history resumed yesterday with the start of an appeal by the former foreign minister Roland Dumas, 80, against a conviction and six months' jail sentence for influence peddling.

Four other defendants in the case of the alleged pillaging of the Elf-Aquitaine oil company in the 1980s and early 1990s – including Christine Deviers-Joncour, 55, the former mistress of M. Dumas and self-styled "Whore of the Republic" – are also appealing against the convictions and jail sentences handed down 18 months ago.

The first day was interrupted by legal wrangling after the lawyer for one of the defendants served notice his arguments would cover territory declared a "defence secret" by the French government.

Alfred Sirven, 75, a former senior executive at Elf who was arrested hiding in the Philippines – to be summonsed to the original trial – says the large sums moved around in his name can only be explained by a multibillion-pound deal to sell six French frigates to Taiwan in the late 1980s.

References to that deal, one of the main strands to the entire, tangled saga, were banned from the first trial after the transaction was declared by the French government to be covered by defence secrecy laws.

M. Sirven once said he knew enough secrets to blow up the French state several times over. How far he will be allowed to go in describing the Taiwan deal when his lawyers start their pleading today remains unclear.

Another defendant, Loik Le Floch-Prigent, 59, a former president of Elf-Aquitaine, told the French press he was also prepared to blow the whistle on a culture of illegal commissions, and surreptitious payments to African leaders, which, he says, existed at Elf for many years.

M. Le Floch-Prigent says that those payments were not only approved but inspired by successive French governments. He says he has documentary evidence – including a signed letter – that proves President Jacques Chirac was aware of such payments.

Similar threats of startling revelations were made before the original trial but failed to materialise, partly because the judges refused to accept evidence that was not directly linked to the charges.

M. Dumas was accused of fixing the appointment of M. Floch-Prigent and M. Sirven to top positions in Elf. In return, the prosecution alleged, his mistress was given a "job" at the company to channel gifts in his direction, including a £1,100 pair of hand-made shoes.

The court ruled M. Dumas had accepted illegal payments from Elf but that there was no proof that he played a leading part in the conspiracy.

Hence his relatively lenient six-month sentence. Mme Deviers-Joncourt was sentenced to 18 months in jail. M. Le Floch-Prigent and M. Sirven were jailed for three and a half years and four years respectively. All four were also ordered to pay fines, ranging from £100,000 for M. Dumas to £250,000 for M. Le Floch-Prigent.