Free Republic

Considering that it seems to be every prominent Canadian’s preferred second nationality, from the Governor-General and the new Leader of the Opposition down, France is a faraway country of which we know little. One had assumed the French themselves were a wee bit more on top of things. Switch on the TV from time to time and you often stumble across footage of the mob overturning cars in Paris over some modest regulatory change M Chirac’s hapless ministers have proposed. It would seem to indicate a more active engagement with politics than most western citizenries are willing to muster. Yet...

With a cast of characters including a former prime minister, some of the richest executives in France and Germany, Paris' biggest-ever corporate crime trial continued this week with 37 defendants in the dock. France's largest-ever corporate corruption trial resumed in Paris this week with more drama than your average Mexican soap opera. The case offered further tales of illicit backroom dealing, a €5 million divorce settlement tab picked up by French taxpayers and allegations that a former French prime minister accepted bribes in connection with a string of acquisitions made by the state-owned French oil conglomerate Elf Aquitane in the...