The specially-constituted court made up of judges and parliamentarians will deliver its verdict in just under two weeks.

Laurent Fabius, a former socialist prime minister and both Edmond Herv and Georgina Dufoix who served in his cabinet, all deny responsibility for the scandal in which more than 1,000 people have died.

The victims' families continue to blame the three.

Lawyers for the three politicians wound up their case on Friday, demanding that the court should find some way of restoring their reputations as well as acquitting them.

One said that Laurent Fabius in particular had acted with courage in taking measures to limit the spread of Aids in 1985 and had been left wounded and broken by the scandal which slowly unfolded as it emerged that as many as 4,500 people had been treated with HIV-infected blood. A thousand have since died.

Rival systems

Their families insist the politicians delayed acting to give French scientists time to develop rival laboratory systems to American technology which was already available.

They were angered when even the state prosectutor demanded merely some sort of reprimand for the three politicians rather than "guilty" verdicts.

His ambivalent approach to this legal process reflected two widespread feelings - first that holding politicians legally responsible for mistakes made while they held office, might set a dangerous precedent and second, that if France had a tradition of holding public inquiries as some other countries do, this trial might never have been held.