Herve Temime, lawyer of French businessman Bernard Tapie during a hearing of his client's trial for having defrauding French state of nearly half a billion euros with a massive 2008 arbitration award, at the Paris courthouse on May 10, 2021. Bernard Tapie, a 76-year-old former minister who rose from humble beginnings to build up a sporting and media empire that once included the Olympique de Marseille (OM) football club, is one of six people on trial in the latest chapter of a two-decade legal saga that has ensnared a slew of senior officials, including ex-president. It centres on a payment of 404 million euros ($454 million) awarded to Tapie by an arbitration panel to settle a dispute over the state's sale of Adidas, the German sporting goods company which Tapie briefly owned. Photo by Raphael Lafargue/ABACAPRESS.COM