Abstract
The Elf scandal started in 1994 with an ordinary trial of the dubious conditions in which Elf oil company and the Crédit Lyonais funded Bidermann's textile firm. This financial bail-out turned out to be a tremendous embezzlement scandal. ELF's executive officers misused their company assets for their personal use. This financial scandal had also bared a political-business network of corruption in which political French leaders were using ELF to promote the project of French foreign policy of grande nation in Africa and ELF's benefits to fund political campaigns. This Elf scandal ‘became the biggest political-financial scandal of the French corruption history' .
The first point to deal with would be to know why this ELF scandal is a case of corruption. From Robert Klitgaard, ‘corruption exists when an individual illicitly puts personal interests above those of the people and ideals he or she is pledged to serve'. From this general concept, there is apparently no way to put into question the corrupt aspect of the ELF scandal. But, what are the forms and the particularities of this case of corruption? One time again, one can refer to Robert Klitgaard who says that corruption ‘can occur in the private sector or in the public one, and often occurs in both simultaneously' . It devises quite well the ELF case in which both actors were implied into the affair. From this duality which characterizes ELF scandal, it would be pertinent to focus on the network established by political French and African leaders through ELF's executive officers. How had this network been possible?
