Word: frenchness
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Like many unfortunate things in life, my addiction to cigarettes can be blamed on men. My first pack of cigarettes was purchased at the age of 19 in Buenos Aires after a remarkably bad dinner with a French lawyer. The latest, and likely not last, was bought last night at Tommy’s because my boyfriend refuses to admit that he’s a smoker and instead bums off me. (For the record, a “real” smoker is someone who puffs through ten or more cigarettes a day. Parliament Lights, a popular brand among...
...Following three and a half hours of questioning by investigating magistrates in Paris Wednesday, Chirac was formally placed under investigation in the case - a step in the French legal procedure tantamount to being named as a suspect and charged under other justice systems. The case arose from Chirac's 18-year reign as mayor of Paris prior to his presidential win in 1995. Along with several concurrent investigations still underway involving Chirac, the suspected embezzlement of municipal funds was allegedly part of a wider system to finance Chirac's political party, and provide salaries and services to party officials...
...Most of the purported machinations were rooted in a period in the early- to mid-1990s, when successive laws were passed (and blanket amnesties accorded) in an effort to sanitize the then notoriously corruption-prone French party financing systems. No suggestion has been made that any potentially misused municipal funds benefited Chirac or other City Hall officials personally...
...That may not seem like a significant distinction, but political analyst Dominique Moïsi says that absence of personal enrichment is important to a French public that might, if matters proceed, "see a difference between corruption for personal gain, and breaking rules on party financing...
...also thinks Chirac's current and possibly future designation as a suspect in other cases will do harm to his reputation, but he doubts Chirac risks becoming the first French president to ever be convicted by one of the nation's courts. "There will be some sort of blame or fault assigned, but it probably won't go to conviction," Moïsi predicts. "The French already knew the details in these cases, and fully expected Chirac would be implicated by judges for them. So this is really a non-event: a matter of French justice following its course. Right...