Jacques Chirac trial due to open in Paris

Former French President Jacques Chirac is due to go on trial charged with illegal party funding during his time as mayor of Paris.



However, there are doubts whether the trial can go ahead as planned after a medical report found that Mr Chirac, 78, is suffering memory lapses.



Mr Chirac, who denies the charges, has asked the Paris court for his lawyers to be allowed to represent him.



He is the first French former leader to stand trial since World War II.



The BBC's Hugh Schofield in Paris says that if the trial goes ahead it will almost certainly be in Mr Chirac's absence.



Mr Chirac, who was mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995, is accused on two counts of paying members of his Rally for the Republic (RPR) party for municipal jobs that did not exist.



If found guilty he faces up to 10 years in jail and a fine of 150,000 euros (£131,000).



The first count accuses Mr Chirac of embezzlement and breach of trust relating to 21 so-called "ghost jobs".



The second resulted from a separate investigation in the Paris suburb of Nanterre and involves an illegal conflict of interest relating to seven ghost jobs.



Despite persistent rumours of wrongdoing, Mr Chirac was immune from prosecution while he was president from 1995 to 2007.



After years of legal wrangling, he and nine other defendants finally went on trail in March.



But on the second day of the trial a lawyer representing Mr Chirac's former chief of staff at city hall, Remy Chardon, challenged the two cases being brought together.

Memory lapses



He argued that the statute of limitations had expired in the first case.



The Court of Cassation - France's highest appeals court - later ruled that the constitutional challenge was not valid.



Friends of the former president say that in recent months he has been subject to embarrassing lapses of memory.



His mind wanders although he doesn't realise it, they say.



A medical report sent to the judge - drawn up at the request of Mr Chirac's family - spelled out his condition and recommended that he be excused from attending the trial because he is not able reliably to answer questions about the past.



On Monday, Judge Dominique Pauthe is expected to respond to the medical report in his opening remarks. His options include dropping the case, postponing it or seeking further medical opinion.



Our correspondent says there are a few sceptics who say the medical arguments are being exaggerated by a Chirac family furious about the humiliation of a trial.



Mr Chirac is the first French former head of state to face criminal charges since Marshal Philippe Petain - leader of the collaborationist wartime regime - was convicted of treason after World War II.