Twenty years ago Christian Lesecq, who was an experienced French Barrister, taught Law at the University of Paris, advised British and American companies across Europe and had sat on the boards of a number of French Corporations, heard a banging on the door in the early evening.

He answered the door to a bunch of heavies who announced that they were from the local tax office and they wanted the equivalent of €130 000 in cash immediately. They were backed up by the Police and a removal van.

“What for?”

“Unpaid death duties on your deceased mother’s estate.”

 Maitre Christian Lesecq, responded there was no duty to pay and this had been recorded at the local tax office.

They just told him unless you have €130 000 now, we are taking your property.

Seeing these heavies had no intention of leaving, he tried appealing to reason. “It’s the early evening the banks are closed where am I going to get that sort of money in cash?”

This was obviously the wrong thing to do. They just pushed past and stripped his house of anything valuable, including furniture that had been in his family for two hundred years. They took all of his computers, which had all of his case notes on and were the tools of his trade.

Eighteen months later a letter arrived from the Tax Office with a certificate confirming that there was no inheritance tax to pay on the property he inherited from his deceased mother.

What do you think happened next? An apology from the Tax office? Restoration of the goods taken? An apology and financial compensation?

No! It was the Gallic shrug, not my problem. The goods disappeared and no financial restitution was made. Christian Lesecq then spent twenty years chasing this in vain through the Courts in France, right up to the European Court of Human Rights. During all that time Christian Lesecq was subject to constant harassments by the tax authorities in retaliation for his complaints for violation of his Right of Property.

This book has done more for Christian's case than twenty years of struggle against the State has achieved. The Regional Newspaper ‘Ouest France’ has run with the story on January 21st, 2010.

One now hopes that criminal charges will be levelled against all those involved in the harassments tantamount to moral torture Christian was subject to and that, at the age of 77, Christian can enjoy restitution and financial compensation for the years he spent seeking justice in France and Strasbourg.

Your support to Christian and his NGO Chrysalis for the sake of Human Rights within France will be most appreciated. Thank you in advance.