Word: fran
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...This week, France's senior investigating magistrate, Françoise Desset, ruled that a case brought by the anticorruption organization Transparency International against three African leaders had sufficient merit to warrant a full judicial investigation. The complaint accuses the trio - Gabon's President Omar Bongo, President Denis Sassou-Nguesso of the Republic of Congo, and Equatorial Guinea leader Teodoro Obiang Nguema - of pillaging their impoverished nations and treating state money as their personal wealth to finance acquisitions in France. The ruling means Desset can use her judicial authority to examine banking and other records to determine the origins of funds...
...stereotype of the African "Big Man," having seized and maintained power by force. Each one, Transparency International alleges, has also used his position to enrich himself. That, French foreign-policy specialists say, has been done with the complicity and connivance of successive French governments maintaining the traditional Françafrique policy of retaining influence among former colonies. French lawyers for each of the leaders have flatly refuted the allegations. In Gabon - where Bongo is in temporary seclusion to mourn the death of his wife - government spokesman Alain Akouala Atipault assured that "there's nothing concrete in this affair, and there...
...Françafrique is a Gaullist creation that integrated leaders from France's African sphere as virtual members of the French political and strategic élite," explains Antoine Glaser, a specialist on Franco-African relations, and author of the recent book Sarko in Africa. "That relationship has been based on French recognition of services rendered, and meant the interests of African leaders and their families that make up the first circle of power have come before the actual populations they're supposed to represent...
...officially investigate the embezzlement charges raised by Transparency International - and braved the anticipated appeal by France's top prosecutor against the investigation. Indeed, if the investigation makes it all the way to court, some observers say it could be the first blow that eventually brings the understandings of Françafrique crashing down...
...massive theft of artworks all across Europe. One problem: Mona Lisa had never been part of the Napoleonic plunder. Though Leonardo had begun the painting in Florence in 1503, he took it with him to France 13 years later when he resettled at the court of the French king François I. After his death there in 1519, the painting passed through several hands until an eager François bought it for the modern equivalent of around $10 million...