What had once been described as “the trial of Vercingetorix” has come to an unexpected end. Jacques Chirac, the former President of France, has been convicted for misusing public funds when he was mayor of Paris in the 1990s.

Mr Chirac was long assumed to enjoy a measure of judicial indulgence that went well beyond the formal protection he was entitled to by virtue of his office. Voices from across the political spectrum had called for the trial to be shelved. Sceptics had wrongly assumed that the court would somehow find ways to kick the ruling into the long grass.

That the French judicial system has held Mr Chirac to account is testimony to its independence. Mr Chirac’s two-year sentence was actually harsher than that of the others accused in the trial. His age and weak health justify the judges’ decision to suspend the jail term.