French Polynesia

Politics in French Polynesia during the year under review was dominated by a profound leadership struggle between veteran politician Gaston Flosse, who lost his position as president of the country, and his successor and former son-in-law Edouard Fritch, who successfully freed himself from his former mentor’s overbearing influence. Yet it came at the price of breaking up the solid majority arising from the 2013 election and throwing the country into a new period of political instability.

It all started in July 2014, when the French justice system finally started catching up with Flosse’s various cases of corruption after decades of ineffective handling. On 23 July, the Paris Court of Cassation, a court that examines prior cases for procedural errors, confirmed a previous criminal conviction that Flosse had first appealed, to no avail, and then re-appealed. While the court suspended Flosse’s jail sentence, it confirmed a fine of 125,000 euros (us$138,000) as well as a deprivation of his civil rights. The president was thus legally barred from voting or serving in an elected office for a period of three years (ti, 23 July 2014).

The substance of the charges was the so-called fictional employment affair, going back to the late 1990s and early 2000s, when various politicians and trade union leaders had been given paid jobs at the presidential office without ever working there, a scheme of corruption popular among French politicians.

Under normal circumstances, Flosse would immediately have been notified of the final sentence and removed from office. However, his lawyers tried to use any and every means to evade the sentence, first by asking yet another court to reexamine the sentence; second by filing a complaint with the European Human Rights Court (if either court would rule in Flosse’s favor, it would lead to a suspension of his sentence); and finally by petitioning French President François Hollande for a presidential pardon (ti, 23 July 2014).

As a matter of procedure, French High Commissioner Lionel Beffre was notified of the sentence and tasked with enforcing it by formally declaring Flosse ineligible and therefore removed from office. However, Beffre first refused to do so, arguing, on shaky legal grounds, that the demand for a presidential pardon had to be heard first. This was interpreted as an indication that Flosse’s protective network was still operational. It was indeed unheard of that a convicted criminal, whose conviction has been confirmed for a third time, could evade his sentence simply by asking for a presidential pardon. The more usual procedure would be that a pardon would be pronounced afterward and might, for instance, lead to an early release from jail or, in Flosse’s case, might reinstate his civil rights earlier than originally intended.

The high commissioner’s stalling tactics scandalized the local opposition. Opposition Union Pour La Démocratie (upld) leader and former President Oscar Temaru argued that Beffre’s behavior undermined the rule of law, stating that with this precedent, all convicted criminals could now refuse to accept their sentences by asking Hollande for a presidential pardon (ti, 29 July 2014). Similarly, Teva Rohfritsch of the small pro-French opposition party A Tia Porinetia (atp) expressed being “shocked” at what he perceived as a plot by the French government to protect Flosse (rnzi, 6 Aug 2014).

While still acting as though the confirmed conviction did not exist, Flosse undertook at least one positive step when he dismissed the controversial former French overseas minister, Brigitte Girardin, from her position as the country’s “special representative in Paris,” admitting that the post was superfluous (ti, 6 Aug 2014)—a fact that had been pointed out numerous times before by the opposition and by independent observers.

Later in August, President Hollande commented on the pardon petition, stating ambiguously that “the decisions of the Judiciary should be applied” (ti, 23 Aug 2014). Beffre interpreted this as a refusal of Flosse’s demand and at last initiated Flosse’s removal from office. On 6 September, the president was thus declared removed by decree of the high commissioner and prohibited from holding any political office for the...