Balladur jurisprudence
Encyclopedia
The "Balladur jurisprudence," named after former French Prime Minister Edouard Balladur
Édouard Balladur
Édouard Balladur is a French politician who served as Prime Minister of France from 29 March 1993 to 10 May 1995.-Biography:Balladur was born in İzmir, Turkey, to an Armenian Catholic family with five children and long-standing ties to France...

, is an unwritten rule according to which a member of the French government who has been indicted in a judicial affair should resign from his functions. It is misnamed, as it was in fact the Socialist
Socialist Party (France)
The Socialist Party is a social-democratic political party in France and the largest party of the French centre-left. It is one of the two major contemporary political parties in France, along with the center-right Union for a Popular Movement...

 Prime Minister Pierre Bérégovoy
Pierre Bérégovoy
Pierre Eugène Bérégovoy was a French Socialist politician. He served as Prime Minister under François Mitterrand from 1992 to 1993.-Early career:...

 who imposed this for the first time by forcing Bernard Tapie
Bernard Tapie
Bernard Tapie is a French businessman, politician and occasional actor, singer, and TV host. He was Ministre de la Ville in the government of Pierre Bérégovoy, a businessman specializing in recovery for bankrupted companies, among which Adidas is the most famous ; and owner of sports teams...

, then Minister of the City, to resign in May 1992 .

The Balladur cabinet

Various governmental personalities were forced by Balladur to resign after being indicted by the French justice, mostly for corruption
Political corruption
Political corruption is the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption. Neither are illegal acts by...

 affairs. Those included Alain Carignon, who resigned in July 1994 and was sentenced to five years of prison in 1996; Michel Roussin
Michel Roussin
Michel Roussin was the chief of staff of Alexandre de Marenches, who directed the SDECE French secret service until the May 1981 election of François Mitterrand as President of France...

, indicted in the frame of the corruption scandals in the Paris region
Corruption scandals in the Paris region
In the 1980s and 1990s there were, in the Paris region , multiple instances of alleged and proved political corruption cases, as well as cases of abuse of public money and resources...

 (condemned in 2005 to four years of prison on probation
Probation
Probation literally means testing of behaviour or abilities. In a legal sense, an offender on probation is ordered to follow certain conditions set forth by the court, often under the supervision of a probation officer...

  ); Gérard Longuet
Gérard Longuet
Gérard Longuet is a French conservative politician. On 27 February 2011, he became the new French Defense Minister.-Biography:...

, indicted in the same scandals as Michel Roussin (and acquitted in 2005) and for a minor affair concerning the building of his villa in Saint-Tropez
Saint-Tropez
Saint-Tropez is a town, 104 km to the east of Marseille, in the Var department of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of southeastern France. It is also the principal town in the canton of Saint-Tropez....

 (acquitted in 1998).

The Jospin cabinet

In November 1999, Dominique Strauss-Kahn
Dominique Strauss-Kahn
Dominique Gaston André Strauss-Kahn , often referred to in the media, and by himself, as DSK, is a French economist, lawyer, politician, and member of the French Socialist Party...

 resigned from his functions in Lionel Jospin
Lionel Jospin
Lionel Jospin is a French politician, who served as Prime Minister of France from 1997 to 2002.Jospin was the Socialist Party candidate for President of France in the elections of 1995 and 2002. He was narrowly defeated in the final runoff election by Jacques Chirac in 1995...

's Plural Left cabinet, in agreement with the "Balladur jurisprudence." He was later acquitted of all charges

The Fillon cabinet

After the June 2007 legislative election
French legislative election, 2007
The French legislative elections took place on 10 June and 17 June 2007 to elect the 13th National Assembly of the Fifth Republic, a few weeks after the French presidential election run-off on 6 May. 7,639 candidates stood for 577 seats, including France's overseas possessions...

, Prime Minister François Fillon
François Fillon
François Charles Armand Fillon is the Prime Minister of France. He was appointed to that office by President Nicolas Sarkozy on 17 May 2007. He served initially until 13 November 2010 when he resigned from being prime minister before a planned cabinet reshuffle.On 14 November 2010, Sarkozy...

 broke for the first time with this informal rule by appointing André Santini
André Santini
André Santini is a French politician, mayor of Issy-les-Moulineaux, Hauts-de-Seine.A former member of the UDF, he did not support François Bayrou, the candidate of his party for the first round of 2007 French presidential election, choosing instead to support Nicolas Sarkozy.After the election, he...

, indicted in the Fondation Hamon affair
Fondation Hamon affair
The Fondation Hamon affair was a French political scandal surrounding the Fondation Hamon, a project to build a modern art museum on île Saint-Germain at Issy-les-Moulineaux, later abandoned....

on charges of corruption, Secretary of State .
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