France's highest court is today expected to rule in a case which could end the political career of French Polynesia's president, Gaston Flosse.
His lawyer appealed against last year's conviction, which gave the veteran politician a four-year suspended jail sentence, a 170,000 US dollar fine and banned him from public office for three years.
He had been found guilty of running a network of so-called phantom jobs within the presidency in the 1990s in what has been the biggest case of its kind in French legal history.
A ruling in Paris was expected last year but the court now says it will be given today.
In January, his lawyer suggested he might go to the European Human Rights Court to stop the court case.
Last July, the opposition reportedly asked the French justice minister to try to avert further delays.
It said it didn't want to interfere with the judiciary but ensure that the legal process was carried to its conclusion.
