Former president Nicolas Sarkozy was on Tuesday being held in police custody near Paris as part of a judge-led investigation into allegations of ‘influence peddling’ and ‘violation of the secrecy of an investigation’. It is the first time in the history of France's Fifth Republic that a former head of state has been questioned in police custody – the French term is 'garde à vue'. Sarkozy has been interviewed before, in the course of the Bettencourt affair, but on that occasion he was interviewed simply as a witness because the facts of the case occurred while he was head of state and he benefitted from immunity, though he was later placed under formal investigation before the case against him was dropped. In the current probe the alleged 'influence peddling' took place after he left office.
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