Former French President Jacques Chirac, 78, to go on trial

A French court Tuesday suspended the trial of former president Jacques Chirac on charges of embezzling public funds as mayor of Paris in the 1990s, following a constitutional challenge.

Mr Chirac, 78, the first former French president ever to go before a judge, is accused of using the money to pay people working for his party ahead of a successful election bid in 1995, according to Daily Nation.

Judge Dominique Pauthe agreed to adjourn until June in order to refer a constitutional question raised by the lawyer of one of Chirac's nine co-defendants to an appeals court. That court may then send the case to France's constitutional court.

The lawyer argued that a key complaint in the case was made too long ago to merit a trial today, and that the prosecution should not have combined two cases for a single trial.

The hearings should resume "around June 20" the Paris court said, Deutsche Welle reports.