Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s former president, was secretly taped in dozens of meetings while in office by a close adviser, in discussions ranging from his opinions of his ministers to him joking that his marriage to supermodel Carla Bruni had made him rich, reports The Financial Times.
Publication on Wednesday of some of the clandestine tapes ignited a full-blown political scandal in France just weeks before nationwide local elections this month.
The revelations, quickly dubbed “Sarkoleaks”, caused anger and acute embarrassment among leaders of Mr Sarkozy’s centre-right UMP party, and prompted calls from President François Hollande’s ruling Socialist party for a parliamentary inquiry into how such a breach of presidential confidentiality could have occurred within the Elysée Palace.
Mr Sarkozy, widely believed to be planning a political comeback, “feels he has been betrayed”, said Henri Guaino, one of his longtime political advisers who described the tapes as “a form of rape”.
In the recordings so far published by Canard Enchainé, the satirical weekly, and Atlántico, a current affairs website, there are no “smoking gun” revelations or issues of national security. But only a small number have so far been made public.
“Apparently there are tens, hundreds, of hours of recordings, it makes me feel sick,” Mr Guaino said.
In one, Mr Sarkozy is heard discussing with his advisers a cabinet reshuffle he made in 2011. He describes as “grotesque” the notion, mooted at the time, that he should replace then-prime minister François Fillon with Jean-Louis Borloo, a rival former minister.
But he damns Mr Fillon with faint praise, saying: “Even if Fillon is not a disappointment, he is what he seems.”
In another tape, Mr Sarkozy is heard bantering with Ms Bruni and others. She teases him that she pays for their apartments. He says: “You see, I got rich by getting married.”
She goes on to joke that by being married to the president she is prevented from signing “fabulous contracts” for anti-wrinkle treatments, like film stars Julia Roberts and Sharon Stone.
The tapes were made by Patrick Buisson, a controversial figure who served as a special adviser to Mr Sarkozy when he was president. A former editor of the far-right magazine Minute, Mr Buisson was the key strategist behind Mr Sarkozy’s marked tilt to the right during his failed election campaign against Mr Hollande in 2012.
Read more of this report from The Financial Times.