In the latest episode of a saga that split France’s last conservative government and threatens to divide the new one, Michèle Alliot-Marie, the interior minister, is to be questioned over what she knew about a plot to smear Nicolas Sarkozy three years ago in an apparent attempt to prevent him from becoming president.
A retired spymaster, General Philippe Rondot, claimed last week that he had revealed to Alliot-Marie, who was then defence minister, the details of the alleged conspiracy to blacken SarkozyÂ’s name. Loyal as she then was to President Jacques Chirac and the prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, who both loathed Sarkozy, she allegedly failed to warn him that he was the target of an effort to discredit him.
The claim came at the end of a dramatic week in which a power struggle won long ago by Sarkozy over de Villepin culminated in raids on the former prime ministerÂ’s office and home, prompting speculation that he might be charged with a criminal offence in spite of his insistence that he had done nothing wrong.
The story has gripped France with its insights into Machiavel-lian intrigue in high politics. The conspiracy centred on false accusations in 2004 that Sarkozy, among other politicians and businessmen, held secret offshore accounts through the Clearstream International bank, based in Luxembourg. Bank records were forged to suggest they had received large bribes over the sale of French warships to Taiwan.
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