At that time, we did laborious research on Minitel, we wiggled in the booms to the sound of "Simple and Funky" by Alliance Ethnik, Patrice Loko was the top scorer of the French Championship under the Nantes colors and, in the suitcases of dirty money, we carried francs.
In the spring of 1995, after two years at Matignon, Edouard Balladur failed in the first round of the presidential election won by his former “30-year-old friend” Jacques Chirac.
Twenty-five years later, justice plunges behind the dark scenes of this lost campaign, drowned in cash against a background of suspicion of retrocommissions on the sidelines of armament contracts.
At 91, the former Prime Minister appears from this Tuesday before the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR) for complicity in the abuse of corporate assets and concealment - a gloomy epilogue of a long political career.
At his side, his former Minister of Defense François Léotard, 78, will also be tried for complicity in the abuse of corporate assets.
The Court, a mixed jurisdiction composed of both magistrates and parliamentarians, will conclude its proceedings on February 11.
This belated trial is one of the many aftershocks of the attack in Karachi (Pakistan).
14 people killed, including 11 French employees
On May 8, 2002, in Karachi, an explosion killed 14 people, including 11 French employees of the Directorate of International Naval Construction (DCN-I).
These engineers from the Cherbourg arsenal (Manche) were responsible for assembling submarines under a contract worth more than 5 billion francs signed in September 1994, called Agosta.
The investigation into the terrorist component of this attack is still ongoing (read below).
But it was not until 2010 that two investigations - since joined - do not focus on its financial aspect, then 2014 so that the file is not transmitted to the CJR for its political side.
And six more years to complete the investigations and fix the hearing.
The story relates in all to five giant arms contracts signed in 1994 for nearly 28 billion francs: four with Saudi Arabia and one with Pakistan.
While the conclusion of these agreements seemed certain, a new circuit of intermediaries had been imposed at the last moment: the K network of the Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine.
For the investigating committee of the CJR, recourse to this second network was "unnecessary".
Worse, it turns out that these greedy intermediaries obtained prepayment terms that were as exorbitant as they were unusual.
These choices have helped to seal these contracts which turned out to be largely in deficit.
The investigation showed that the K network had been imposed by the Ministry of Defense, then occupied by François Léotard.
The latter had met Ziad Takieddine when he chaired the Isola 2000 ski resort. The operation was then led by Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, François Léotard's most loyal adviser.
At the time, the Budget Ministry had repeatedly expressed its disagreement.
But Matignon had systematically arbitrated in favor of the Defense.
Sale of t-shirts and gadgets
Before he walled into silence and refused to answer questions from the investigating committee, François Léotard maintained that in his eyes the intervention of the K network was necessary.
As for Edouard Balladur, whose defense has multiplied the remedies to try to have the prescription recognized, he has always invoked ignorance.
“It was not a matter of my competence,” he argued.
François Léotard nevertheless claims to have kept Matignon informed.
But for the investigators, this cumbersome imposition of the K network would have had the main objective of facilitating the return to France of part of the sums paid in the form of retrocommissions.
And in particular to fuel the campaign of Edouard Balladur who mysteriously benefited from 15 million francs in cash.
The explanations provided by his team to justify this timely windfall - the sale of t-shirts or gadgets at meetings - are hardly convincing.
The track of the special funds of Matignon has always been denied.
The investigation focuses in particular on a cash payment of 10.25 million francs on April 26, 1995. We are then after the first round and the accounts of the former defeated Prime Minister are in the red.
However, two weeks earlier, Ziad Takieddine had gone to Geneva (Switzerland) to make a withdrawal of 10.05 million francs from one of the accounts set up to receive commissions.
For the investigative committee of the CJR, the link between the two is "established".
Heavy prison sentences in the first part of the case
Justice has already concluded that these retrocommissions exist.
In the non-ministerial part of the case, the criminal court handed down heavy sentences last June against Ziad Takieddine (5 years in prison), Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres (5 years in prison, 2 of which were suspended and 120,000 euros fine) or even the former chief of staff and campaign manager of Edouard Balladur, Nicolas Bazire (5 years in prison, 2 of which suspended and 300,000 euros fine).
All three appealed.
The judges, for their part, had spoken of facts having "harmed an exceptionally serious not only to economic public order but also to confidence in the functioning of public life".
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Edouard Balladur has always taken refuge behind the validation of his accounts by the constitutional council.
Except that at the time, the council's rapporteurs were in favor of their rejection.
In an interview with Le Figaro, the former chairman of the board, Roland Dumas, admitted that the accounts of Edouard Balladur - but also of Jacques Chirac - were "clearly irregular" but that he had assumed to validate them in the interest of the Republic.
Despite his age, the former prime minister is planning to appear before his judges.
As for François Léotard, who does not have a lawyer, he would be ill.
The 2002 Karachi bombing investigation continues
Almost twenty years have passed and the investigation into the circumstances of the Karachi bombing is still ongoing.
Initially, the Al-Qaida track was imposed.
There, two Pakistanis were even sentenced to death in 2003 but released six years later.
In 2009, judges Marc Trévidic and Yves Jannier told the families of the victims that they now favor a new avenue.
The attack was said to have been a belated retaliatory measure to the end, in 1996, of the payment of commissions to Pakistani officials, decided by Jacques Chirac after his election.
The latter was in fact convinced that the circuit was feeding the clan of his rival Edouard Balladur - this is the subject of this trial - and had immediately decided to put an end to it.
This lead had in particular been put forward in 2002 in an internal report to the DCN-I drafted by a former counter-espionage agent.
Since then, justice has struggled to support this thesis.
In a summary note sent in April 2019 to the new investigating judge, the DGSI indicates that, according to it, “the Islamist track as an explanation for the Karachi attack remains the preferred one”.
With the Covid-19 pandemic, investigations have hardly advanced since.
"The dynamic of the investigation is not interrupted," warns a source close to the case.
The civil parties should be heard again in the coming months.