Jacques Chirac spent eighteen years as mayor of Paris, which apparently he treated less as a public office and more as a personal campaign finance operation. In 2011, a French court convicted the former president — a man who had spent years hiding behind presidential immunity like it was a bespoke suit — of diverting public funds during his tenure at the Hôtel de Ville. City money, it turned out, had been quietly redirected to pay fictitious employees who were actually working for Chirac's RPR party. The conviction came with a two-year suspended sentence, meaning Chirac faced the grave punishment of not going to prison. The French public, displaying their characteristic philosophical tolerance for elite misbehavior, largely shrugged. Chirac remained popular. He died in 2019 as something of a beloved national grandfather figure, his corruption conviction apparently filed under 'charming eccentricities.' The constitutional council had helpfully granted him blanket immunity from prosecution while he was president, ensuring justice arrived only after it was maximally inconvenient for nobody.