Britannia Radio

De Villepin stands trial for Sarkozy ‘libel’

Dominique de Villepin (pictured), the former French prime minister and sometime poet, has been ordered to stand trial for his role in an alleged plot to smear Nicolas Sarkozy with claims that he held a secret bank account for laundering bribes. The offence de Villepin has been charged with is believed to be 'complicity to libel', and if found guilty he faces up to five years in prison.

The scandal, known as the 'Clearstream affair' (after the bank in which the alleged deposits were made) dates back to 2004 when de Villepin and Sarkozy were ministers under Jacques Chirac and were vying to succeed him as president. An anonymous source wrote to a judge making the accusations against Sarkozy, who was the finance minister at the time, along with a number of other politicians.

De Villepin has consistently denied any involvement.There is no love lost between the pair, and the French president has made no secret of his desire to exact revenge for the perceived wrong. In a 2006 investigation of the matter he asked magistrates to identify the culprits and is generally believed to have been influential in bringing de Villepin to trial.

This is certainly the view of de Villepin, who maintains he has no case to answer. In response to the news, he said that "the reality of the facts and of the law has been twisted in favour of a single plaintiff" who happened to be the French president.