Wall of silence on Giscard cronyism claim

Date: 23/01/03

By Martin Banks

ALLEGATIONS that former French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing may have improperly used his influence to enable a close female friend to win a seat in the European Parliament were this week greeted by a wall of silence.

Giscard, the 76-year-old chairman of the Convention on Europe's future, is said to have an eight-year-old son by the woman concerned, his former parliamentary attaché MEP Christine de Veyrac. Both their private offices issued a firm "no comment" when asked to respond to the claims that Giscard intervened to secure de Veyrac a high placing on a list of candidates for the 1999 election.

Details of the case have appeared in a French weekly magazine, which is publishing extracts of a book by journalist Daniel Carton. The book, entitled 'Bien entendu, c'est off' (as in off the record), has caused consternation in France, where the private lives of politicians are usually regarded as just that.

In it, Carton claims that Giscard approached former French minister François Bayrou to find de Veyrac a place on his list of candidates. After Bayrou refused, Giscard is said to have turned to current interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy for help; no one in his office was available to confirm this last night.

De Veyrac, 43, who is deputy mayor of Toulouse, was placed tenth out of 87 centre-right candidates and duly elected. She is a member of just one Parliamentary committee, regional policy, and is little-known in Brussels circles.

Giscard, who was president of France from 1974 to 1981, has been married for 50 years. He and his wife, Anne Aymone de Brantes, have four children.

There has been no official response to allegations that former French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing may have improperly used his influence to enable a close female friend to win a seat in the European Parliament.