How can corruption occur in a democracy as France? Analysis through the ELF scandal

SWYNGHEDAUW L.

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How can corruption occur in a democracy as France? Analysis through the ELF scandal

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The Elf scandal started in 1994 with an ordinary trial of the dubious conditions in which Elf oil company and the Crédit Lyonais funded Bidermann's textile firm. This financial bail-out turned out to be a tremendous embezzlement scandal. ELF's executive officers misused their company assets for their personal use. This financial scandal had also bared a political-business network of corruption in which political French leaders were using ELF to promote the project of French foreign policy of grande nation in Africa and ELF's benefits to fund political campaigns. This Elf scandal ‘became the biggest political-financial scandal of the French corruption history' .

The first point to deal with would be to know why this ELF scandal is a case of corruption. From Robert Klitgaard, ‘corruption exists when an individual illicitly puts personal interests above those of the people and ideals he or she is pledged to serve'. From this general concept, there is apparently no way to put into question the corrupt aspect of the ELF scandal. But, what are the forms and the particularities of this case of corruption? One time again, one can refer to Robert Klitgaard who says that corruption ‘can occur in the private sector or in the public one, and often occurs in both simultaneously' . It devises quite well the ELF case in which both actors were implied into the affair. From this duality which characterizes ELF scandal, it would be pertinent to focus on the network established by political French and African leaders through ELF's executive officers. How had this network been possible?

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Introduction
Historic sum up of the twists and turns of the ELF scandal: A complex and dense corruption case
1. From Bidermann's affair to the African affair
2. The multitude of connate corrupted affairs in the ELF sphere
The origins of the ELF scandal: The failure of a democratic state and of an administrative control
1. The network of the elites as an incentive to corruption: Between pantouflage and consanguinity
2. The culture of impunity within the French administrative system
3. The violation of separation of powers
4. The democratic electoral system can conduce to corruption
The goals of ELF corruption
1. A fundamental tool of French foreign policy
2. Practices: Based on the culture of corruption of African developing countries and strengthened the situation over there
3. ELF's benefits served personal interests: The double venality of French political parties and business men
References

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[...] The scandal of the Taiwanese frigate in the end of the nineties revived the ELF scandal. In the sale of Taiwanese frigates by Thomson to Taiwan, ELF acted as an intermediary to make easier the contract. The problem was the Chinese veto to this contract, so a commission coming to 150 millions of Francs was planned by ELF to make the Chinese government to close their eyes on the transaction. The 11th March 1998, LeMonde, basing on Le Floch-Prigent's declarations, denounced that Jean Louis Bianco, former State secretary of L'Elysée, was aware of ELF's commission concerning the Taiwanese frigates scandal. [...]

[...] The violation of separation of powers A democratic and liberal government depends on the separation of the powers. In the case of the ELF scandal one may observe deflections of the French state to interfere in some domains in which it should be absent or not so many present. For instance, Eva Joly, the judge in charge of the ELF scandal, denounced the fact that she received a lot of threats from the politician sphere and that the trial was really difficult when investigation about the state responsibility were lead[23]. [...]

[...] In fact, ELF was bribing African political leaders to ensure their company to get the exclusivity on energetic resources of these countries. These bribes were sending to occult bank accounts in fiscal paradise as in Switzerland. For instance, Omar Bongo, Gabon's president confessed that he was receiving a kind of tithe for each oil barrel sale to France. The court found also out that ELF bought five percent of the oil production of Nigeria in 1990 and five additional percent in 1993[10]. [...]

[...] One may assert that ELF scandal was the illustration of a political corruption regarding A. Shleifer and R. Vishny's definition: ‘government corruption is the sale by government officials of government property for personal gain'[36]. As we previously observed ELF scandal dealt with personal enrichments rising hundred millions of dollars for luxurious expenditures. The executive officers of ELF as Le Floch-Prigent or A. Sirven embezzled for their personal use million of ELF benefits. Moreover, business friends of ELF's network were also involved as in Switzerland, Spain, Venezuela and many other countries[37]. [...]

[...] These factors enabled corrupted people to pass over French democratic regulations and norms. So, regarding ELF scandal one demonstrate that corruption is not only a ‘developing countries' issue and democracy can fail to prevent corruption. In addition, the catastrophic consequences and amount of dollars embezzled into ELF's case underline that western corruption has no reason to be jealous of corruption in the developing world. Nevertheless, in contrast with developing countries, the French corruption is institutionalized and arrays of legality. Because of that we cannot say that French corruption possesses the pathologic characteristics of developing world's corruption[40]. [...]

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