Forgot to say for those who may not know, that French political parties are partly financed by public funds (that’s been the case for about 30 years, with substantial changes along the way), following a formula based on their results in the two main elections (Législatives - MPs - and the Presidentials), basically their number of MPs and the number of votes they got in the first round of the Presidentials, as of 2017 (last Presidential), it’s €1.42 per ballot vote per year + €38,000 per year given to the party for each député or sénateur elected under the banner of that party. Explains for instance why Macron’s party gets about €20 million a year from the state, as they had 308 MPs elected, although 40 have defected since then; Les Républicains get nearly the same, they have much fewer MPs than En Marche but many more sénateurs than Macron’s party only has about 25 sénateurs, the senateurs are much more a product of the “territoires”, the regions, that bit is even enshrined in the constitution, *Le Sénat représente les collectivités territoriales" etc.).
This public funding was gradually introduced from the late 1980s to put a stop to the rampant corruption affecting French politics – donations from lobbies, businesses, kickbacks to parties etc. – and it’s largely worked. A raft of key reforms and laws re the financing of political parties, starting with the Rocard Laws in 1988, have been adopted since then and as a result the legislation on donations and funding are much stricter than before the 1990s (hugely reinforced powers given to investigating judges too in terms of political matters, it’s much better in terms of the independence of the judiciary etc.), pre 1990s there were no rules regarding party financing, and whenever a politico-financial scandal emerged via the media, the judiciary was pressurised into sweeping things under the rug. This free-for-all had largely benefited the main two “sides” (Left and Right) since the early 1970s, namely the Socialist Party and the various mainstream rightwing parties (which, as you will know, often change name in France), notably the Urba scandal and later the Elf Aquitaine scandal, the latter described by The Guardian in 2003 as “probably the biggest political and corporate sleaze scandal to hit a western democracy since the second world war”.
The Elf scandal was a particularly mammoth political scandal that hit France in the early 1990s (and one that would contribute to the passing of much stricter new legislation on a number of related areas, eg rules governing donations to parties, investigative powers etc.), and carried on in the 2000s with the trials that took place in that decade.
The Elf Aquitaine scandal that is also remembered for its many ramifications and juicy sexual developments, notably the Elf Aquitaine manager (and former lingerie model) Christine Deviers-Joncour who was handsomely remunerated by Elf and also to get top socialist politicians in the early 1990s, in particular then Foreign minister Roland Dumas, with whom she was having an affair at the time, to award favours to a French multinational in armament contracts (frigates) with Taiwan.
Deviers-Joncour was dubbed "the Mata-Hari of the Périgord” (she grew up near Sarlat, still lives there) and “The whore of the Republic”, her own words, she did cash on her notoriety, she wrote 7 (!) books on that case and gave plenty of interviews to the media. She explained at the time that she had no choice as she’d been bankrupted by the whole thing. Although she was on over €10,000 a month at Elf, lawyers’ fees, the taxman (redressement fiscal) etc. bled her dry. Who knows…
Investigators know that a lot of money in that scandal vanished abroad, mainly in tax havens. Officially, the financial flux (illegal money) generated in Elf Aquitaine scandal, what the investigators were able to account for, was about €250 million. They estimate though that over €1bn changed hands illegally, either in cash, transfers or in assets (there were many plush properties in France and abroad given, either rented or offered, boats, luxury cars, jewellery etc. - the lot). On top of her regular Elf wage, Deviers-Joncour received huge amounts, to the tune of €20 million but it could be more, as I’ve just written most of the money seems to have gone awol, could be in some tax havens.
She did time in prison for her involvement in that affair (about 3 months), and received a hefty fine (€200K I think) and claims she’s still broke as she still has substantial debts to reimburse (millions of €), only lives off her book royalties and qualifies for CMU coverage.