28 Jul 2014

Flosse unmoved by Paris court ruling

1:40 pm on 28 July 2014

French Polynesia's president is still in office - four days after France's highest court advised the French High Commisson in Tahiti that Gaston Flosse had lost his appeal and he was disqualified from public office for three years.

The High Commission has not enacted the verdict while Flosse is awaiting a response from Francois Hollande to a demand for a presidential pardon.

His lawyers have also asked the court of appeal in Tahiti to drop the sentence so that he can stay in office.

In the verdict, Flosse was given a four-year suspended jail sentence and a 170,000 US dollar fine for running a vast network of phantom jobs to enhance his party's powers as president in the 1990s.

The opposition's Oscar Temaru has strongly criticised the French judiciary and called for fresh elections, saying there is no democracy in a country where there is no justice.