It said Mr Mitterrand’s son, Gilbert, received consulting fees from him after Mr Mitterrand’s first election in 1981. Although there was nothing illegal in taking a loan, Mr Pelat, a friend of Mr Mitterrand, was named in an insider trading case after his death in 1989.A leaked report by Mr Jean- Pierre last December described Mr Mitterrand’s own financial links to Mr Pelat. Almost invariably, their findings are leaked to the press and published before formal charges are laid.It was Mr Jean-Pierre who uncovered the interest-free loan that Mr Beregovoy had accepted from Roger-Patrice Pelat to buy a flat. Last week he and another magistrate were put under police guard after receiving death threats.The magistrates’ method of keeping their investigations alive – and ensuring their independence – is controversial, to say the least.

In Le Mans in 1990, Thierry Jean- Pierre, a magistrate, concluded that the Urba company used the same methods to feed Socialist Party coffers.Mr Jean-Pierre, now an MEP in the same conservative group as Sir James Goldsmith, the Anglo-French financier, so annoyed the Socialist government that he was removed from his post and his cases were given to Renaud Van Ruymbeke in Rennes Mr Van Ruymbeke proved equally uncompromising. It was in Marseilles in 1989 that police uncovered a ‘false bills’ scandal in which a building company overcharged on public works contracts and sent the surplus to politicians’ campaign headquarters. ‘If we are now seeing a lot of affaires,’ Mr Mehaignerie said this week, ‘it is because cases are no longer being covered up.’Edouard Balladur, the Gaullist Prime Minister, noted that most of the scandals dated back to the late 1980s before new legislation on party funding and hoped they would die down once this wave was over. The first recorded political corruption scandal of this type goes back to 1847 when Jean- Baptiste Teste, the public works minister, was jailed for taking a bribe in return for a mining concession.For Pierre Mehaignerie, the centrist Justice Minister, it is simply that the judiciary is now free of control. If he took it as a gift afterwards, the charge would be ‘passive corruption’.'Nobody pretends that such practices are not new. Optimists claim that they are coming to light because a newly independent judiciary is suddenly able to uncover them. The businessmen involved also end up in trouble – about 100 French chief executives at present face charges.’If a building firm gets a municipal contract, then you may find that the local mayor gets some work done on his house by the same firm,’ said a fiscal lawyer.’If there is no proper bill and it transpires that the mayor made the work a condition for the contract, he can be accused of ‘active corruption’.

Alain Carignon, the Gaullist communication minister until he resigned in July, was put in custody to stop him influencing witnesses after he was charged with ‘passive corruption’.Mr Carignon’s case follows a typical pattern. As mayor of Grenoble, he is suspected of taking favours, such as a large rent-free flat in Paris and election campaign funds in return for public works contracts, particularly linked to the privatisation of Grenoble’s water services.Other cases involve contributions to political party coffers or donations in kind, such as rent-free offices in return for municipal contracts Some include personal perks. Francois Mitterrand blamed ‘dogs’ in the media for Beregovoy’s despair.
Francois Leotard, the Defence Minister in the new conservative government, spoke of ‘elegant Fascism’. Beregovoy, he said, was ‘the first victim of a new culture’.Such comments reflected a view that politicians were the victims of witch hunts and that the magistrates investigating corruption cases, known in France as les affaires, were going too far. A year and a half later, the French media are crammed more than ever with news of corruption charges across the political spectrum.Gerard Longuet, the conservative Industry Minister, was forced to resign this month because he was under investigation for personal fraud and illicit party funding. Friends suggested that it was the pain of coming under suspicion himself that had pushed him to the brink.

On 1 May 1993, six weeks after leaving office, the lifelong Socialist shot himself with a bodyguard’s gun. During Pierre Beregovoy’s 11 months as France’s Prime Minister, one of his most famous speeches was about fighting corruption. On top of that there is a daily allowance of pounds 159 for every day that an MEP is away from home on parliamentary business, which is meant to cover hotels, meals and additional extras.. Until the row was solved, national governments had refused to ratify a decision that national budget contributions be increased to cover the EU’s extra expenditure.As a result, the budget has had to be drafted according to 1994 provisions, creating a shortfall of some pounds 471m.MEPs are paid at a rate that is commensurate with the salaries earned by national parliamentarians.The British delegation comes well down in the ranking, with an MEP earning about pounds 30,000 a year. The Socialist group, the majority party in the parliament, has calculated that MEPs could shave pounds 395,000 a year off the joint taxi bill, pounds 553,000 from mileage claims for car travel and pounds 4m in foreign trips.
‘We should, of course, reimburse MEPs for costs incurred in the course of parliamentary business but those costs should not be excessive,’ said the group leader, Labour MEP Pauline Green.The parliament is often portrayed as a gravy train, partly because the publicity machines of the two principal groups can score easy political points by drawing attention to the abuses that do occur from time to time.But with the sleaze factor now a serious political issue in many EU member states, the European Parliament is determined not to make itself an easy target.Calculating the European Union’s 1995 budget has been a more complicated process than usual because of the prolonged row over Italy’s refusal to cut back milk production.The dispute was resolved at the end of last week when Rome agreed to pay a record fine for exceeding its milk quota, provided the EU increased that quota retrospectively.