This article appears in the December 11, 2020 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
What the Rejection of My 1995 Presidential Campaign Account Means Today
[Print version of this article]
The editors of EIR draw our readers’ attention to the fact that the revelations with respect to the presidential candidacy of Jacques Cheminade in France in 1995, have surfaced at a time that the “party system” of France—as also those in the United States and much of the rest of Europe—is losing credibility. The Cheminade case therefore erupts in the middle of an overall power crisis where many bubbles are coming to the surface of very muddy waters. Cheminade is a longtime representative of the LaRouche philosophical outlook in France. He is the president of Solidarité et Progrès. This is an edited translation from the statement that first appeared on Cheminade’s website on October 23.
At first glance, it may seem out of place to mention the rejection of my campaign account for the 1995 presidential election right now, when the abominable murder of a teacher in France is on everyone’s mind. However, the link between what is happening today in France and those pathetic sessions of the Constitutional Council of July-October 1995 is very real—because the door opens to barbarism when the highest court of a country flouts the rule of law. That is what did happen then, and it is now indisputably established by the Council’s archives that were just recently made public 25 years later.
Not only did the councilors validate the manifestly irregular accounts of Edouard Balladur and Jacques Chirac, but they also rejected mine using a fallacious legal argument and, by their own admission, “without material evidence.” Jacques Robert, then a member of the Council, acknowledged in Le Parisien of December 1, 2011 that “raison d’etat” had prevailed over the law.
Thus, on May 4, 2011, President of the Council Roland Dumas, in the TV program Face aux Français on France 2, justified validating Balladur’s and Chirac’s accounts, and rejecting mine, by explaining shamelessly that I had been “rather clumsy” and the others “clever.” A strange concept of justice, but even more so, a false argument: The two right-wing candidates had been protected by a rogue system, not “clever” at all. Even Jean-Marie Le Pen’s account was validated, despite its “lack of documentation,” no doubt because he was considered to be part of the same political world into which it was impossible for me to be integrated.
Roland Dumas exhibited his cynicism, in responding to Lyon Capital’s statement, “You were carrying suitcases of cash to finance Mitterrand’s campaign,” saying, “Yes, of course.” All French people with any interest in politics know that Chirac had recourse to the same sources. Noelle Lenoir, who was then a member of the Constitutional Council, said she was “at peace with her conscience,” having voted against the validation of Balladur’s account, but she ardently defended Chirac’s accounts. Maurice Faure of the Constitutional Council had declared of Chirac’s candidacy, “We know where the money had come from,” which had caused the candidate to “soar above the authorized spending limit.” As for Noelle Lenoir, her “peace” was rewarded with a Ministry during the presidency of Jacques Chirac.
As Jacques Robert acknowledged, it was necessary to “cover up the accounts” and find a legal expedient. Like crude mafia men laundering drug money accounts, this is what the councilors did during several sessions.
Before the accounts of Chirac and Balladur were whitewashed, Cheminade’s was unanimously rejected. The Council, in its decision against the latter, asserted that the absence of interest rates on loans made by private individuals was suspicious, and thus re-qualified those loans as donations, thus making Cheminade’s accounts exceed the legal limit of donations.
The legal argument was so wobbly that Olivier Schrameck, the Council’s General Secretary, insisted that the case should not be referred to the courts in order to avoid the smell of a scandal. Indeed, the provisions of Article 1905 of the Civil Code define a loan by “the fact that it must be repaid,” without regard to whether interest payments are involved. Thus, the Council violated the rules of the Civil Code, against Cheminade.
The Dishonesty of the Press
The reports of some of the Radio France team of journalists indicate an intention to harm Cheminade, raising a suspicion concerning allegedly unjustified loans to the Cheminade campaign coming from an account in Switzerland. These were in fact legitimate funds, from the inheritance of a campaign organizer. And the journalists added that the candidate had “invented” expenses, while the invoices being questioned had all been validated by the communication to the Council (in a letter dated September 22, 1995), of a copy of the various printed documents. The conclusion of Jacques Robert and Maurice Faure was reported in an article of the French magazine Les Inrocks of February 23, 2012: “They rescued their own reputation at his expense.”
Even France Info and France Inter had to recognize this report: “While they have regularly argued that ‘the candidate must get the benefit of the doubt’ in the case of the Chirac and Balladur accounts, the Wise Men have decided to sanction the ‘minor’ candidate.”
There is much more than that, however. The “minor candidate” was not just a scapegoat in order to cover up for the major ones. Throughout my campaign, I had been defamed by the media, and I have a large file—available to anyone—which demonstrates that. The Superior Council of the Audiovisual Media on April 24, 1995 acknowledged, with figures in hand, that my media access amounted to far less time than other candidates, and the National Campaign Control Commission on September 20, 1995 observed that I had been subjected to “unequal treatment.”
Footprints of a Political Mafia
All throughout, the French state legal apparatus insisted that I personally had to reimburse the state’s advance of 171,325.46 euro to me for my campaign expenses, which advances had been given to all of the other candidates. The government finally recovered the funds by withholding reimbursement of my 2012 campaign account, which at that time had been declared perfectly in order and validated! Such a relentless pursuit can only be understood if one examines what I never ceased forecasting at the time: the collapse of an international financial system leading to social looting in which almost everyone was then complicit. This is where we are today.
I am not posing as a personal victim, but rather accusing the political mafia that caused this disaster. The rejection of my campaign account is revealing. It is our economic roadmap for the future that is essential. The members of the Council were, at the time, only more or less conscious expressions of the City of London and Wall Street system. The issue at stake here is not only what would have happened had my candidacy been dealt with fairly, but what we all must do for the common good today, and what we must do for the good of future generations.
