One after the other, President Nicolas Sarkozy's closest friends and aides, who for so long served as his political fireguards, have become implicated in a series of scandals and fast-developing judicial investigations. The alleged illegal political funding scam that has finally exploded with the revelations surrounding arms dealer Ziad Takieddine has already demolished the president's once solid network of protection. What has been happening this past month at the summit of French political power is historic, writes Mediapart editor François Bonnet, for never before has a French president been so exposed to being sunk by scandal and the revenge of abandoned protagonists.
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One by one, the once airtight blocks are falling. One after the other, President Nicolas Sarkozy's friends, who have for so long served as his fireguards, now find themselves placed under investigation by the justice authorities and facing serious charges. What has been happening this past month at the summit of French political power is historic. Previous presidencies, notably those of Valery Giscard d'Estaing, François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac, were tainted by scandals. But none of those presidents faced the threat of being swept away by them in the manner that Nicolas Sarkozy does today.
In the days before he accepted an offer to return to government as foreign affairs minister in November 2010, the veteran Gaullist politician Alain Juppé is widely reported as having asked Sarkozy: "Do I have any interest in climbing aboard the Titanic?" More recently, when he was asked about his impressions onboard, he quipped that he now recognizes the ship had "a captain". But now the skipper has become the major problem for both the government and the ruling UMP party.
For every protection mechanism created by Sarkozy during his 30-year political career is in the process of crumbling to pieces and, even though protected by law under the impunity enjoyed by French presidents, he now finds himself increasingly exposed to the ongoing judicial investigations - and the verdict of public opinion.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
We must take full stock of what is becoming a crisis of regime. Never before have the men in the shadows, those who served others in the secret world of political financing and personal enrichment, been suddenly paraded in public in the manner witnessed over recent weeks. Can anyone imagine a character like arms dealer Ziad Takieddine crash onto the public stage during the presidencies of Charles de Gaulle or François Mitterrand?
The danger now is such that intermediaries like Takieddine have chosen to threaten the pinnacle of political power via lengthy media interviews.
When, in early July, Mediapart began publication of its series of detailed investigative reports on the interlacing commercial activities involving Takieddine and the presidency, based on commission-stuffed contracts and secret diplomacy (see the first article here), they were accorded little importance. The initial disinterest was all the more disappointing given that Mediapart has, since September 2008, regularly revealed the true nature of the weapons contracts signed in 1994 with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Following that first article, 15 more in the series have followed, including dozens of documents and photos (see the list at the bottom of page three of this editorial). None of those cited in our reports has taken the risk of legal action against Mediapart. We spelt out the sensitive issues and dirty truth exposed in our reports about the arms dealer and the French presidency, and we underlined how the gravity of those facts rendered all the more scandalous the obstacles the government has placed in the path of the independent magistrates investigating them (see Mediapart Editor-in-Chief Edwy Plenel's analysis here).
Guéant as bull's eye
An inherent and grave sickness of the French Fifth Republic is the impossibility for independent magistrates to progress with decent speed in enquiries that implicate political figures. Just last month, another example of this was the latest suspension of Jacques Chirac's trial on corruption charges after 15 years of sniping, procedural delays. It should be remembered that we would today know nothing of the Takieddine-Karachi Affair, or its protagonists, without the tireless determination of the families of the 11 French naval engineers murdered in Pakistan in 2002, who have struggled for almost a decade against all odds to determine the truth, nor without the obstinate professionalism of the two judges investigating the affair, Marc Trévidic and Renaud Van Ruymbeke.
The strength of the political hurricane now sweeping the Elysée Palace is illustrated by Ziad Takieddine's decision to give his lengthy interview to TV news channel BFMTV before his next appointment for questioning by Judge Van Ruymbeke. For, despite being intercut with flagrant lies and diversion tactics, Takieddine was not addressing the channel's viewers but rather was pronouncing a series of threats to his past friends and associates.
First among these was Nicolas Sarkozy, to whom he gave "24 hours" to declassify the official documents relating to the contracts with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and which until now have been stamped the status of defence secrets. Takieddine demanded that Sarkozy meet him because "he has an interest, I think, and France has an interest, that he receives [meets] me for at least 15 minutes." He confirmed that he calls the president "boss", of having worked for him from 1993 to 2009, and of having met him on at least two occasions.
Then came his words for interior minister Claude Guéant, who figured at the centre of Takieddine's target board. Guéant, Sarkozy's former chief-of-staff and longserving aide before he became president, was no doubt paying for his very public disowning of Takieddine, who has now become such a highly embarrassing acquaintance. "It is true that concerning Takieddine, it now appears that he has done things that are reproved by the law and morals," Guéant told French daily Libération, and which had clearly rendered Takieddine furious. Speaking to BFMTV, the arms dealer said: "They are all abandoning me [...] You, Claude Guéant, who I considered to be a friend, I demand of you excuses."
Takieddine cited all the members of the president's close entourage. They included Nicolas Bazire, with whom he admitted working with in 1994, former prime minister Edouard Balladur, who he "met once", Thierry Gaubert with whom he travelled to Switzerland "to buy cigars" and dabbled in property deals,, his "friend" Jean-François cope, now head of Sarkozy's ruling UMP party for whom Takieddine paid several holidays and trips abroad, not forgetting presidential advisor and Sarkozy's friend of 30 years, Brice Hortefeux, with whom Takieddine recalled making visits to Saudi Arabia.
Just what, then, does Ziad Takieddine know to be able to proceed with what appeared to be a blackmail attempt targeting the French State's highest authorities? No doubt he knows everything, given how the thousands of documents obtained by Mediapart and the results of the ongoing judicial investigations reveal two decades of secret financing, contract spinning and diverse and dubious business activities.
A web of friends, business deals, families and politics
For in parallel to Takieddine's wheeling and dealing and his phenomenal enrichment after just a few years (by his own accounts, this amounts to a wealth of 100 million euros), is also exposed the opportunistic, self-interested activities over 15 years of one of Nicolas Sarkozy's friends and aides, Thierry Gaubert. Today comfortably recycled as a director of the French banking group Banque populaire-Caisses d'épargne (whose CEO is François Pérol, a former deputy Chief-of-Staff at the French presidency), Gaubert has acquired a lot of wealth from the sidelines of politics.
It has been discovered that Gaubert, charged in a public housing and property scandal in the Hauts-de-Seine département (county) west of Paris, has secret bank accounts abroad and cheated on his tax returns, and is the proprietor of a vast property in Columbia. According to his estranged wife, Princess Hélène of Yugoslavia, he also made trips to Switzerland, accompanied by Takieddine, to withdraw cash sums from a bank which were then transported in suitcases back to Paris, via London, and handed over to Nicolas Bazire. Gaubert, former aide to Sarkozy when budget minister, also allegedly paid for holidays by Sarkozy at a luxury hotel in Venice.
What does Gaubert's lifestyle tell us about Nicolas Sarkozy? An astonishing parallel. The president's well publicized use of French tycoon Vincent Bolloré's yacht La Paloma mirrors the use of Takieddine's yacht La Diva by Gaubert, Jean-François Copé and Brice Hortefeux. Sarkozy's presidential election celebrations at Le Fouquet's take on a different light with the appearance onboard Takieddine's yacht of Dominique Desseigne, chairman and managing director of the Lucien Barrière Group of luxury hotels and casinos that owns the plush Champs-Elysées establishment. Desseigne married Diane Barrière, daughter of Lucien Barrière who founded the business, after her divorce from Thierry Gaubert.
Enlargement : Illustration 4
This web of friends, business deals, families and politics is becoming rapidly undone. Nicolas Bazire, former principle private secretary to then-Prime Minister Edouard Balladur, now Managing Director and Head of Development and Acquisitions of French luxury goods group LVMH, who was Sarkozy's best man at his marriage to Carla Bruni in 2008 and who is also, according to a report in French weekly Le Point, godfather of Gaubert's son, was last month formerly placed under investigation - one step short of being charged - by Judge Van Ruymbeke for "aiding and abetting the misuse of company assets" and "receiving" the proceeds. As was Ziad Takieddine. Brice Hortefeux, meanwhile, is the subject of a preliminary investigation into his suspected "violation of the secrecy of an investigation" following a phone call he made to Gaubert, while the latter was in police custody for questioning, informing him of his estranged wife's testimony.
Interior minister Claude Guéant is now threatened by the scandal over the spying of journalists during the L'Oréal-Bettencourt affair. As is also the director- general of the French police, Frédéric Péchenard, a childhood friend of the president, and also Bernard Squarcini, head of French intelligence services, the DCRI, and who has been called for questioning by a magistrate investigating the snooping. Meanwhile, public prosecutor Philippe Courroye, who was appointed chief prosecutor of Nanterre, west of Paris, on Sarkozy's behest (despite the objection of France's High Council of the Magistracy), has been summoned for questioning by a judge leading enquiries into a separate case of suspected illegal espionage of journalists, when he faces being placed under formal investigation.
Historically, on the scale of Nicolas Sarkozy's political career, this network of people, built up from 1983 in the Hauts-de-Seine département where it began, has one single purpose, that of protecting Sarkozy and ensuring his ambitions with the necessary means and staff. While Jacques Chirac had the Paris City Hall, Sarkozy had this entourage - and which is today the subject of numerous judicial investigations. It is an unprecedented situation. Never before has a president's circle of aides, police chiefs, magistrates and financiers been so implicated in scandals of this nature.
If ever Nicolas Sarkozy decides to try and save his own skin with some sort of a clean-up, he will have Ziad Takieddine, and most certainly others, with the means to call him to order. That was the sense of what Takieddine said during his interview last week on BFMTV.
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For more on this story and Mediapart's exclusive investigations into the political scandal surrounding the activities of arms dealer Ziad Takieddine, click on the links below:
French judge finds key evidence in illegal funding probe
British divorcee becomes key witness in French political funding scandal
Net closes in on French presidency after funding 'scam' arrests
Arms dealer probe brings illegal funding scandal closer to Sarkozy
The secret financier who brings danger to the Sarkozy clan
Sarkozy, the arms dealer, and a secret 350 million-euro commission
The well-connected arms dealer and his tax returns
How Sarkozy aides saved arms dealer from paradise island 'death blow'
Exclusive: how Sarkozy's team sought grace for Gaddafi's murderous henchman
The arms dealer and his Paris party for the glitterati
Exlusive: how President Sarkozy's team dealt with Gaddafi
When Total paid the bill for the Elysée's secret emissary
How French intelligence shields the sarkozy clan's unofficial emissary
Divorce court freezes arms broker's assets
The French-built stealth offroader that may be hiding Gaddafi
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English version: Graham Tearse