No, it's not what you're thinking.

[khaosworks]

Paris set for Elf trial

One of France's biggest ever corruption trials gets under way in Paris on Monday, with 37 people facing charges of embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars from the formerly state-owned oil company Elf.

The suspects, who include Elf's top managers in the early 1990s, are suspected of creaming off money from the massive commissions that were systematically paid out to certain African leaders and influential middlemen in order to secure contracts.

This monumental trial has been eight years in preparation and is set to last three months.

At its heart lies the system of officially sanctioned influence-buying that allowed successive French governments to use Elf almost as an arm of foreign policy, especially in Africa.

Billions of francs were paid out in bribes and commissions, including, it is alleged, to well-known African leaders.

And in the early 1990s, the court will be told, some of that money made its way back to France to line the pockets of senior executives.

Elf's president at the time, Loik Le Floch-Prigent, his number two, Alfred Sirven, and the country's so-called Mr Africa, Alfred Tarallo, lead the charge sheet.

No, nothing really of note, just to note that corruption, bribery and funneling of funds to politicians isn't just an American phenomenon. But don't you just love the headline?

Comments

[camwyn]

I thought it would be the Earth Liberation Front, myself. I've noticed that English news sources tend to treat acronyms differently from American ones (the BBC calls acquired immune deficiency syndrome Aids, not AIDS, for example), so the first thing through my head was 'since when do the French have an ecology problem, other than trying to wake up Godzilla?'.

[nighthellcat.livejournal.com]

lol.

I am helpless to do anything but laugh hysterically while the world kills itself in front of my eyes.