HE IS known for big grocery bills but Jacques Chirac’s extensive air travel is also stirring curiosity among investigators trying to breach the secrecy surrounding French presidential spending.

It emerged last week that only 400 of the 673 hours that Chirac spent aboard his luxurious presidential jet in 2003 can be accounted for by official trips, raising suspicions that he took the aircraft on holiday or lent it to friends, a possible abuse of public funds.

Under the French system Chirac is not obliged to explain what he does with his £56m budget — £20m more than the Queen’s. Pressure is growing on him to make a full disclosure, however.

“People are right to be suspicious when it is Chirac in charge of the purse strings,” said René Dosière, a Socialist MP investigating the spending. “He has a track record of abuse from the time when he was Paris mayor.”

Dosière was referring to a judicial investigation into accusations that Chirac, 72, diverted money to the Gaullist party when he was mayor of Paris in the 1980s. Chirac has refused to be questioned by judges, citing presidential immunity.

When his presidency ends, perhaps in 2007, he could be called to account for this and other alleged irregularities, such as the crudely inflated grocery bills that were part of what judges suspect was an illicit fundraising machine.

The presidential budget, says Dosière, has grown considerably during Chirac’s reign as individual ministries have been asked to contribute. “There is absolutely no transparency,” said Dosière. “We need to reform.”

Chirac’s flying habits in particular are being held up as an example of waste. Not wanting to ruin a night’s sleep, he has often told pilots not to land before 7am, regardless of the detours this can entail. An hour of flying costs up to £4,000.

Bernadette, his wife, has also been singled out for attack. She was reported to have cost French taxpayers some £50,000 in 2003 by insisting on using a private jet rather than a local airline on the last leg of an official journey to join her husband in the south Pacific.

One of Chirac’s first actions when he came to power in 1995 was to place an air force unit in charge of the presidential jet, meaning that its activities are classified as military secrets and shielded from the French audit office.

Even some of his supporters think he has gone too far. “Democracy needs more transparency,” said Bernard Pons, former president of the Association of Friends of Jacques Chirac. “This secrecy belongs to another era.”

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