"... Chirac could finally appear in the dock this week in a historic corruption trial in the same courtroom which saw Marie-Antoinette sentenced to the guillotine. ... Chirac is accused of masterminding a scheme in which cronies who worked for his political party, the RPR, were on the Paris City Hall payroll, receiving salaries for jobs that never existed. Chirac is expected to take the stand on Tuesday.... Chirac will be the first former French head of state to stand trial since Marshal Philippe Petain was convicted of treason and shipped into exile after the second world war. ....... Alain Juppé, a close Chirac ally, was convicted over the fake jobs scandal in 2004 and received a 14-month suspended prison sentence and a year's ban from politics. Yet he has just been appointed Nicolas Sarkozy's new foreign minister and de facto "deputy-president" tasked with making Sarkozy look more respectable in the run up to a difficult re-election...... Paris is rife with rumours about his health. He was believed to have suffered from depression after leaving the Elysee. His wife Bernardette recently denied reports that he was suffering from Alzheimers but confessed: "He has difficulties walking and hearing, and sometimes has trouble with his memory."
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