Fanning the flames that fired me
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Former French PM charged with muck raking
A FORMER French PM has been charged over his involvement in scheme to spread rumours about Nicolas Sarkozy.
Dominique de Villepin has denied charges he had spread allegations linking Sarkozy to a scandal involving sales of French ships to Taiwan before he became France’s president.
However investigating judges have honoured a prosecutor’s request by ordering the conservative Dominique de Villepin to stand trial in criminal court on charges of “complicity in slanderous denunciations.”
The scandal broke when a judge received an anonymously sent computer disk that accused Sarkozy and other top officials of using Luxembourg bank Clearstream to hide kickbacks from the sale of French frigates to Taiwan in 1991.
The data on the disk turned out to be bogus so investigators turned their attention to finding out who had sent the disk and why.
At the time, Villepin and Sarkozy, considered rivals, were likely contenders for the presidency. Villepin never ran.
Villepin has vigorously denied the charges and four other suspected accomplices were also ordered to stand trial. If he wants a get out of jail free card he can say that the alleged wrongdoing was conducted as part of his official duties.
He was serving as foreign minister at the time of the alleged crimes. However then he has fess up and explain why it would be government policy to smear a rival. µ
L'Inq
Taipei Times
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Not just ANY rival, but THE rival. For you outsiders that are most probably not aware of the inner workings of French politics, Sarkozy was not just the rival to Villepin, he was most of all the turncoat that had abandoned Chirac to support Balladur, which made him all the more undesirable at the time to certain people (those who supported Chirac, I would suppose).
So anything that could bring down Sarkozy's chance to become President was good to take.
As we know now, it didn't work.