This Europe: Chirac hasn't lost his magic, says author

Jacques Chirac used witchcraft to win the French presidential election this year and paid more than Fr10m (£1m) to African witches to win the World Cup for France in 1998.

This is the thesis of a book just published in France by the same house that produced a much-rubbished book asserting that the United States government invented the attack on the Pentagon on 11 September.

Sylvie Jumel, 43, the author, says she is not claiming that witchcraft works, only that senior French politicians believe in, and pay out large sums of public cash, to "sorcerers".

Her publisher, Patrick Pasin, head of Carnot, which specialises in off-the-wall "investigations", defended the decision to publish the book as a contribution to the political debate in France.

"We have statements from senior officials and from sorcerers, which back each other up in every way," he said. "It is up to the reader to decide whether witchcraft works or not but we believe that, in a great democracy like France, people should know what their politicians are spending their money on."

However, the book – La Sorcellerie au coeur de la République – is remarkably light on facts and quotations from named sources. It suggests that President Chirac used Senegalese sorcerers to charm the France team to their World Cup victory in 1998. Mr Chirac chose not to pay out again this year, because he had already used French and African witches to win re-election.