PARIS, Dec. 1 (UPI) -- Former French Prime Minister Alain Juppe had received a suspended 14-month sentence and been barred from politics for a year in a fake jobs scandal.
Delivered Wednesday, the verdict by an appeals court in Versailles is more lenient than a lower court sentencing in January or what France's public prosecutor had demanded.
But it appears to effectively end the political career of Juppe, the former head of the ruling conservative Union for a Popular Movement Party, and the once-favored heir of French President Jacques Chirac.
Juppe once adamantly denied any knowledge of a jobs scandal that took place in the early 1990s at Paris' city hall when he was in charge of financing, and Chirac was mayor. But during his appeals trial he relented, suggesting mistakes had been made.
As sitting president, Chirac is immune from prosecution.
Juppe's lawyer said his client would not appeal the verdict to France's highest Court of Cassation. Juppe once said he would retire from politics if found guilty.
