Chirac dodges the key questions

It was perhaps the best television performance of President Jacques Chirac's career. For 80 minutes, the embattled French leader laughed, castigated the socialist government and expressed indignation at the "calumnies" of those suggesting there might be something unethical about his spending up to £291,597 in cash on airline tickets in the early 1990s.

Yet Mr Chirac's talent dissipated neither doubts about his integrity nor the gloom over the last French national day of his term in office. It rained so hard on the Bastille Day parade that all but three of 73 flights over the ChampsElysees were cancelled.

In his annual interview, Mr Chirac attempted to redirect accusations towards the Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Jospin. He den ounced "people who wish to break down our society . . . people who wish to destroy the state" - an allusion to Mr Jospin's Trotskyite past.

Differing opinions on whether Mr Chirac should be forced to answer judges' questions in corruption investigations were "the fault of the government, of the Minister of Justice," the President said.

France's Justice Minister, Ms Marylise Lebranchu, quickly retaliated, saying Mr Chirac "wants to go back to the old days" when her predecessors "gave instructions to magistrates".

The first lady, Mrs Bernadette Chirac, has so far been spared a judges' summons, but the Chir acs' daughter Claude was questioned last week.

"When they go after my daughter or my wife, a limit has been crossed. I find it scandalous," the President said. "My wife and my daughter have been deeply wounded." Asked why he did not return the "special funds" he claims were used for the airline tickets to government coffers on leaving the prime minister's office, Mr Chirac evaded the question by pointing out that that Mr Jospin has hundreds of millions of francs in "special funds" at his disposal.

The President claimed all the cash came from his "indemnities"; he didn't say how much these cash bonuses amounted to, or why he never paid tax on them. He also said he would not allow his private life "to be displayed before the public".

Only Le Monde has dared point out that "a long-time friend of Mr Chirac", a female journalist at the Agence France Presse, used cash air tickets to accompany him to the Indian Ocean islands of Reunion and Maurice.