PARIS — A French court convicted former President Jacques Chirac on Thursday of embezzling government money while he was mayor of Paris and handed him a two-year suspended sentence.
The ruling against Chirac, 79, a grandfatherly figure who is widely admired in the polls, stained a long record of political service that started under Charles de Gaulle and included two terms as president, from 1995 to 2007. His attorneys said he would not appeal but considered the verdict unjustified.
Chirac was found guilty of embezzling money, abusing public trust and conflict of interest by creating false jobs at Paris City Hall, which he ran from 1977 until 1995. He diverted the tax-funded salaries to finance his conservative political organization, the Rally for the Republic, as he laid the groundwork for his run for the presidency, the court found.
The conviction, after a lengthy trial, was considered historic because Chirac was France’s first former head of state to face prosecution since just after World War II. Moreover, it dramatized a change in public and official attitudes toward the financing of parties and political figures in France.
The former president did not attend the conviction hearing because of health issues.
