Two months after leaving office, Chirac, 74, was interviewed as an "assisted witness" in the presence of his lawyer -- rather than as an ordinary witness -- which means that the possibility of criminal charges against him remains open, Le Monde newspaper reported.

The interview with judge Alain Philibeaux, which lasted about four hours, took place at Chirac's office on the rue de Lille in Paris's Left Bank.

"You will have noticed that this was an interview which within a judicial context was relatively short, it went ahead calmly and courteously," Chirac's lawyer, Jean Veil said after the interview ended just after 1:30 pm (1130 GMT).

In a signed article in Le Monde, Chirac said his decision to answer the judge's questions was "perfectly normal and in keeping with the conception I have always had of the principles of the Republic."

The so-called "fake jobs" investigation is into allegations that members of his Rally for the Republic (RPR) party had their salaries paid by Paris City Hall or by private companies that won contracts there.

Chirac's close ally former prime minister Alain Juppe was convicted in the affair in 2004, earning him a one-year ban from politics.

Chirac, who stepped down as president in May, was mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995. Three other RPR party finance investigations from the period remain open into which he could also be drawn.

Last month Veil said Chirac would "answer all questions in all the cases that may concern him" in investigations relating to events before he took over as president.

However he said that Chirac refused to be interviewed in the investigation into the so-called Clearstream scandal, which took place when he was in office.

The Clearstream investigation is into allegations that President Nicolas Sarkozy -- then interior minister -- was the victim of a smear campaign in 2004 aimed at derailing his bid for the presidency.

Former prime minister Dominique de Villepin is to be interviewed next week in the affair, amid reports that he will be placed under judicial investigation -- a first step towards charges -- for libel.

Chirac has also been implicated in the Clearstream investigation, but his lawyer said that in this matter he remains protected by presidential immunity.

In his Le Monde article, Chirac conceded that all political parties turned a blind eye to financing irregularities in the 1980s and early 1990s. But he said this needed to be seen in the context of the time.

Originally no law set out the rules for funding political parties, Chirac said. As a result it had become the custom accepted by left and right to raise money from "private firms and even public budgets".

This had not mattered when parties' costs were low, but they sky-rocketed in the 1980s with the growing importance of communications and the creation of European and regional elections.

Not until 1995 was a law finally passed establishing public financing of political parties and banning company donations.

"It was in this period up to the law of 1995, marked by an explosion of financial needs and the inefficacy of the existing fragmentary rules, that the so-called party funding scandals took place. They concerned all parties -- left as well as right," Chirac said.

"In a spirit of clarity and responsibility I plan to remind the judges of this context, in the absence of which one understands nothing," he said.