Loik Le Floch-Prigent, 60, who was appointed by President Mitterrand, was also fined £256,000 for his part in the siphoning off of at least £200 million from Elf funds in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The convictions of 31 of 37 defendants capped an eight-year investigation. The trial laid bare what Le Floch- Prigent claimed was a long-standing system, approved by presidents, in which Elf was used as a slush fund for rewarding friends and allies of the French State.

President Chirac’s Gaullist party was said to be a beneficiary, but no politicians were called to give evidence. Elf was privatised in 1994 and is now part of the Total company.

The trial showed how Le Floch-Prigent and his lieutenants lavished millions on chateaux, mansions and other trappings of luxury lives.

Fatima Belaid, Le FlochPrigent’s former wife, was sentenced to a year in prison and fined £780,000 for receiving £3.6 million in exchange for her silence after their divorce.

“What marks out this case is the systematic nature of the looting,” the prosecution said. “Scarcely is one operation achieved before they are looking at the next way of lining their pockets.”

Alfred Sirven, 76, Le Floch-Prigent’s deputy, who was extradicted after fleeing to the Philippines, was sentenced to five years and fined £685,000 for his role as chief fixer in the looting of Elf funds.

André Tarallo, 76, a senior director, who was nicknamed “Mr Africa” for his close ties to several African leaders, was sentenced to four years and fined £1.36 million.

Reading the verdicts from the trial, which ended in July, Judge Michel Desplan rejected Le Floch-Prigent’s defence that he had inherited the system and had been unaware of the extent of abuses carried out by Sirven.

The former chairman was “the source of most of the misappropriations . . . which you carried out to enrich yourself personally”, the judge said.

“Loik Le Floch-Prigent holds prime responsibility in the Elf affair. It was his duty to ensure the rigorous management of what was, at the time, the biggest French company, which was also a state enterprise.”

The case was “virtually unique in history, given the sums embezzled and the rank of those who committed the crimes”, the judge added.

As well as Elf executives, those convicted also include an array of business associates and middlemen. Among them was Nadhmi Auchi, an Iraqi- British businessman, who was given a 15-month suspended sentence and a £1.37 million fine.

Also convicted was Pierre Lethier, a former member of the French secret service, who was involved in the payment of “commissions” of millions of pounds of illicit funds over Elf’s purchase of the Leuna oil refinery in Germany in 1992. He received a 15-month sentence.

That branch of the scandal tainted Helmut Kohl, the former German Chancellor, after reports that part of the commissions went to help to fund his Christian Democratic party on the orders of M Mitterrand.

Le Floch-Prigent, who is serving a two-year sentence for offences involving in attempts to corrupt Roland Dumas, M Mitterrand’s former Foreign Minister, said that he would not appeal. Sirven and many others are, however, expected to do so. This will mean a full new trial.

Sirven failed in the trial to fulfill a threat during his four years on the run. He had said then that he held enough secrets “to blow up the Republic ten times over”.

In the dock he exposed no new sensations. Many commentators have noted that the court, although fierce towards the Elf “gang”, showed little interest in seeking the names of politicians alleged to have benefited from Elf’s largesse.

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