Gaston Flosse Photo: AFP
An appeals court has ordered French Polynesia's former president, Gaston Flosse, and 12 others to jointly repay $US3.3 million they misspent on so-called phantom jobs.
The ruling comes four years after France's highest court upheld Flosse's conviction, giving him a four-year suspended prison sentence and barring him from holding public office for three years.
The 13 were found to have funded a vast supporter network aimed to help Flosse's Tahoeraa Huiraatira Party for almost a decade from the late 1990s.
The money will be paid to the territorial government and the assembly, and the bulk of it is to be paid by Flosse and the party's former treasurer Marcel Tuihani.
Also compelled to repay money are a former member of the French National Assembly Bruno Sandras and two leading unionists Jean-Marie Yan Tu and Cyril Le Gayic.
A minor sum is to be paid by the current government spokesman Jean-Christophe Bouissou.
The 13 can still appeal to France's highest court.
The order to repay the money coincided with the Tahoeraa's 40th anniversary.
The phantom job case was the biggest of its kind in French legal history.