All three are alleged to have delayed the introduction of an American blood screening test in France to enable a rival French method to be perfected, while Dufoix and Herve are accused of failing to back the warning of blood products to kill the virus.

Herve is also accused of failing to implement a directive against blood donations from those most at risk of carrying the AIDS virus, notably prisoners and homosexuals.

Some 4,500 people were infected through transfusions and contaminated blood productsbetween 1984 and 1986, and more than 1,000 of those infected have since died of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

The defendants face up to 5 years in jail if convicted, but that outcome is unlikely as even the prosecution, which was reluctant to proceed with the case at all, has asked they walk free and only be censured. The likely outcome, with no one declared legally responsible, has prompted outrage from victims and their families, who were not allowed to be civil parties to the trial, though some gave evidence.

In their defence the ex-ministers often took separate lines, with Fabius, now speaker of the lower house of parliament and with most to lose from an unfavourable verdict, coming across as the most convincing.

The conduct of this first trial to be held before the special court, set up in 1993 to try ministers for offences allegedly committed during their tenure, has attr acted widespread criticism.