Former French prime minister François Fillon accused President François Hollande's chief of staff of lying on Sunday after a media report accused Fillon of asking him to accelerate a legal case against his rival Nicolas Sarkozy, reports Reuters.
Newspaper Le Monde said that Fillon had asked Jean-Pierre Jouyet in June to speed up legal cases involving Sarkozy to undermine his political comeback, including one linked to fines over the funding of the former president's 2012 campaign.
Fillon, Jouyet and a third participant at the June lunch had all previously denied the allegation, which could re-open in-fighting within the main UMP opposition weeks before elections to appoint a new leader, which Sarkozy is expected to win.
In an interview early on Sunday, Fillon had told the Journal du Dimanche he would file a legal complaint against Le Monde for defamation and said he was the victim of a conspiracy.
But having initially said on Thursday the lunch had never touched on the legal cases, Jouyet on Sunday backtracked after Le Monde's reporters maintained their version of events and said they had recordings to prove it, and opposition heavyweights rallied around Fillon calling on Jouyet to explain himself.
In a statement Jouyet said he had after all spoken to Fillon about the legal cases, including the fines. He stopped short of saying Fillon had asked him to interfere in legal proceedings.
"I explained to my interlocutors that the president could do nothing about this process given it was being dealt with by the justice system," Jouyet said in the statement.
Speaking on TF1's Sunday evening news, Fillon said he was outraged and angered by the comments and denied categorically that they had spoken about the fines.
"If Mr Jouyet said that, it's a lie. It would be extremely serious, it would be a national scandal," Fillion said.