A court in France has found the country's former Prime Minister Alain Juppé guilty of illegal party funding.
The charges relate to a period in the 1980s and 1990s when the current French President Jacques Chirac was Mayor of Paris.
The court found that Juppé, who is one of President Chirac's closest allies, had allowed party staff members to be paid by the city.
He was given an 18-month suspended sentence and barred from public office for up to ten years. But he has filed an appeal, meaning the sentence has been put on hold.
President Chirac has avoided judicial investigations into how much he knew of the payment scam by claiming presidential immunity.
