`Risk of dishonour' attends trial of Dumas

Mr Roland Dumas declined the judge's offer to remain seated because of his bad hip. In full vieux beau splendour, the 78-year-old former foreign minister, more recently the third-ranking official in the French Republic, testified in his own corruption trial yesterday.

"It is heartbreaking for me to be here at the end of a life which started in misfortune," Mr Dumas said, alluding to the murder of his father by the Gestapo. His life "was built on effort" and he was saddened that "to finish with the risk of dishonour at my age is an unbearable reality".

Investigating magistrates estimate that Mr Dumas received an eighth of the £7.7 million that his former mistress, Ms Christine Deviers-Joncour, took from the then state-owned oil company Elf-Aquitaine. They met in 1988, when her family supported his campaign for a seat in the National Assembly. Mr Dumas saw nothing unethical about inviting the newly appointed chairman of Elf, his co-defendant, Mr Loik Le Floch-Prigent, to his ministerial office with Ms Deviers-Joncour's estranged husband, in the hope of obtaining a job at Elf for the latter.

"I spent my life in public service doing favours for people," Mr Dumas said. But it was upon his mistress - not her husband - that Elf showered its millions. "I asked no one to hire Madame Deviers. I asked nothing of anyone."

The Roland and Christine show descended further into melodrama. In a little girl voice, the femme fatale told the court she believed Mr Dumas asked Elf to hire her. But, she insisted, she really worked for the money. When Mr Dumas mentioned Elf's difficulties with a Saudi oil contract, she jumped to her feet and addressed her former lover for the first time in court. The voice turned shrill, accusatory. "I'm sorry Monsieur Dumas. I came to that meeting with Monsieur Le Floch. You dined together in my apartment."

Later, the judge asked Mr Dumas about a £7,203 collage - now held in evidence - that Ms Deviers-Joncour paid for in cash. "That's my painting. I fell in love with it the moment I saw it. I want it back," she cried. Mr Dumas claims he never wondered how Ms Deviers-Joncour afforded her extravagant lifestyle. "I was neither her accountant nor her financier," he said. Besides, he shared her with another co-defendant, the former estate agent, Mr Gilbert Miara, towards whom he nodded. "I never had the keys to her apartment," Mr Dumas said. "One day in 1990 I rang the bell and she said, `Don't come up. I'm not alone.' It wasn't difficult to understand what was going on."

But how could he not realise that Elf was supporting his mistress? "We had an affair. We didn't live together," Mr Dumas said. "I never left my suits in her apartment. I'm sorry to have to go into such details. Are you naive?" he asked the prosecutor. "Look around you. I am sure that in the building where you live there are people with similar arrangements . . . There was always a whiff of mystery around Madame Deviers."