Tall tales of Jacques the lad

By JOHN LICHFIELD

PARIS - President Jacques Chirac's former chauffeur publishes a book this week which accuses the French head of state of being a persistent philanderer and sexual harasser of his female members of staff.

Publication of the book - an act of revenge by a man who was fired after 25 years' service - is an unusual event in France, where the sexual escapades of politicians are generally ignored.

It claims the procession of women to Chirac's office in the Rue de Lille, headquarters of the neo-Gaullist RPR party, was so constant that women staffers would joke: "Chirac? Three minutes. Shower included."

At least one female staff member of the party who refused to cooperate was insulted and hounded out of her job, according to the book. The former chauffeur, Jean-Claude Laumond, and the publisher, Ramsay, must have thought their timing was perfect. The President already stands accused of using taxpayers' cash to pay for holidays while he was Mayor of Paris. It was Laumond, Chirac's chauffeur from 1972 to 1997, who delivered the banknotes to a travel agent.

But the apocalyptic events in America have overshadowed the book launch. The accusations have been downplayed, or ignored, in the French press, as Chirac tries to take on the mantle of international statesman (dining this week with President George W. Bush in the White House).

For legal reasons, the book - Vingt-cinq Ans Avec Lui ("Twenty-five Years With Him") - describes Chirac's extramarital love life in general terms. It is illegal in France to reveal details of anyone's private life. No names are mentioned, other than those of the President and centre-right politician Marie-France Garaud, who - the chauffeur claims - had a relationship with Chirac that was "both maternal and amorous".

Chirac could sue for defamation and/or invasion of privacy but he is thought unlikely to risk a court action with a presidential election seven months away.

The chauffeur also repeats allegations that Chirac was with a mistress on the night Diana, Princess of Wales, was killed in a car crash in Paris in 1997.

the procession of women to Chirac's office in the Rue de Lille, headquarters of the neo-Gaullist RPR party, was so constant that women staffers would joke: "Chirac? Three minutes. Shower included." At least one female staff member of the party, who refused to cooperate, was insulted and hounded out of her job, according to the book.

Bernadette Chirac was aware of her husband's escapades but never reconciled to them, according to Laumond. When he parked the presidential car at the Elysee palace after driving Chirac to an assignation, he says, she would call to him "like a Neapolitan concierge" from a window in the palace: "And my husband, Mr Laumond, where is he?" The chauffeur, although clearly in a position to know Chirac intimately, lets himself down by making absurd claims and errors of checkable fact.

- INDEPENDENT