Chirac has rare brain illness that wrecks memory, lawyers say

Former French president Jacques Chirac is suffering from a rare brain condition in which he has “forgotten what he has forgotten”, lawyers will declare on the first day of his landmark corruption trial in Paris today.

The illness called anosognosia means the 78-year-old politician will not be able to answer any questions about his past, his defence team will argue.

Chirac’s bid to avoid appearing in the dock comes just a month after he was seen drinking a piña colada, chatting with tourists and signing autographs in the Riviera resort of St Tropez.

The elder statesman faces ten years in jail on charges of embezzlement and breach of trust by creating fictional jobs for his cronies during his time as Paris mayor in the 1980s and 1990s.

He is the first French leader to be sent to trial since Nazi collaborator Marshal Philippe Pétain was convicted of treason after the Second World War.

He has been summoned to appear in the same central Paris court where Marie-Antoinette was sentenced to death in 1789.

But a medical report prepared by neurologist Professor Olivier Lyon-Caen says of Mr Chirac: “He is suffering from a neurological condition that makes it diffficult for him to remember events that occured more than 20 years ago.

“This means he effectively no longer has the full capacity to participate in court proceedings.”

He named the condition as anosognosia, which sometimes occurs in patients who had had earlier heart problems, as Chirac did in 2005.

He added: “It means he has forgotten things, but he is not aware he has forgotten them, and has no awareness of the fact he has a neurological condition.”

Le Parisien newspaper yesterday quoted a “close friend” of Chirac’s as saying: “Despite the photos showing him drinking a piña colada in St Tropez, Chirac has had a difficult summer.

“Sometimes he can hold a proper conversation and at other times he becomes very confused.He has long sleeps in the daytime and is often very tired.”

His lawyers told Le Monde: “President Chirac has indicated to the court his wish to see the trial proceed to its end, even though he is not entirely capable of taking part in the hearings.”

Paris judge Dominique Pauthe is expected to rule on the medical report when the trial opens in Chirac’s absence tomorrow. His options include dropping the case, postponing it or seeking further medical opinion,.

Chirac had used his presidential immunity to avoid legal action until he stepped down as president in favour of Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007. But after a three-year investigation, prosecutors charged him last year.

He then tried to wriggle out of prosecution by repaying £450,000 he allegedly misused, but that only meant the civil case against him was was dropped, not any criminal charges.

The trial brings together two separate rafts of allegations.

The first involves paying seven people out of public funds as city employees when they were working for his own UMP political party. The second concerns 21 other non-existent jobs for which Chirac is accused of embezzlement and abuse of trust.

He claims all the jobs he created were legitimate and “useful to the city of Paris”.

Nine other people are charged alongside Chirac, including two former chiefs of staff and others accused either of having ghost jobs or benefiting from town hall employees.

Chirac was mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995. He lost presidential elections in 1981 and 1988, but was finally elected to the top office in 1995 and again in 2002.

Chirac and his wife Bernadette live in a luxurious apartment overlooking the Seine, lent to them by the family of assassinated former Lebanese prime mnister Rafiq Hariri.