The Senate estimates that France faces a bill of between €27bn and €37bn in the next 20 years as asbestosis victims seek health care and damages.Yesterday's cabinet meeting at the Elys?Palace rubberstamped a 15-point fast-track anti-terror Bill, including measures to introduce video-surveillance and the screening of e-mails and mobile phone calls. The multi-party report found the government had been influenced by industry lobbyists promoting the use of the dangerous insulation material which was banned in many European countries in the 1980s. Chirac's conservative RPR (Rally for the Republicans) party got most of the payments but some funds were given to a small right-wing party, the Parti R?blicain, as well as to the opposition socialists.The court sentenced the former employment minister and regional RPR leader Michel Giraud to four years, suspended, and fined him €80,000. He had denied running the scheme but admitted he knew of the system by which politicians received payments amounting to 2 per cent of any building contract for a school in the Greater Paris region M. But the consensus over Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy's proposed Bill failed to mask the overall sense of decline dominating the French political scene.In yesterday's judgment, M Roussin, 66, a former minister, was fined €50,000.

Chirac was mayor.At the same time, Marseille, the third city in France, was in the grip of the 23rd day of a strike against the privatisation of its metro and bus services.Foremost among yesterday's blows was a report from the Senate - the French upper house - condemning the state's handling of the known health dangers of asbestos, which was only banned in France in 1997. Chirac became head of state in 1995. Yesterday's judgment in the case - in which prosecutors say €70m (