Great Oil Sniffer Hoax - Political Scandal

Political Scandal

All of France's quasi-public corporations were audited by the Cour des Comptes. In 1979 the magistrate in charge of Elf's audit, François Giquel, asked about the sudden change in certain accounts. These had contained only small amounts of money for many years, around 3 million Francs, and then suddenly grew to hundreds of millions of Francs over the last three years. The President personally informed Giquel that it was a matter of military secret, and he was sworn to secrecy. In 1982, Bernard Beck, president of the Cour des Comptes and a political ally of Giscard d'Estaing, shredded three key documents about the case at the auditor's office, as well as Giquel's office copy.

The story finally broke in December 1983. The junior Secretary for the Treasury publicly accused Beck of forfaiture ("abuse of authority") for destroying the documents. The same week Pierre Péan published a complete history of the story in the satirical magazine Le Canard Enchaîné, apparently tipped off by government insiders. The new president, François Mitterrand, seized on the story to attack his predecessor for his involvement in the "cover up", going on to claim that they had destroyed all of the documents. Giscard d'Estaing responded on television, brandishing another copy of the report which he had in his own possession, and claiming that its existence proved that the entire affair was simply a case of political maneuvering.

This proved to be a bad idea; the report was seized and subsequently published in full. On 2 January 1984 it was released live on television by the new Prime Minister, Pierre Mauroy. Mauroy sarcastically accused Barre and Giscard of trying to cover up the embarrassing story. Giscard appeared on television a second time, attacking Mitterrand for "having allowed his predecessor to be attacked". The Economist claimed that Mitterrand used his influence to have a public investigation into Giscard quashed.