It has been one of France’s biggest political and financial scandals of the last generation.
It has left a trail of eight unexplained deaths, nearly half a billion dollars in missing cash and troubling allegations of government complicity.
| Taiwan did not actually want the frigates, but was convinced |
And yet 10 years after it first broke, the story of the “frigates-to-Taiwan” scandal has yet to be told in full.
While investigating judges in Paris have been able to uncover the secrets of a host of other “affaires”, from the Elf slush-funds to the details of President Jacques Chirac’s private travel, the Taiwan connection remains off-limits.
A government order banning judicial access to key documents for reasons of state security has twice been renewed, most recently in June last year.
As a result, a criminal inquiry launched in 1997 remains stalled.
But the suspicions continue to grow: who has what to fear from the truth? Why, when the Taiwanese Government is doing all it can to uncover what happened, does France stubbornly refuse to do the same?
The questions are posed in a new book by a man who was one of France’s top anti-corruption magistrates.
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