The political Right in France has reacted with fury to the announcement that former president Nicolas Sarkozy has been put under formal investigation for allegedly exploiting the mental frailty of L'Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt. The ex-head of state was placed under investigation – one step short of charges being brought – late on Thursday after several hours of questioning in Bordeaux by the judge leading the Bettencourt investigation Jean-Michel Gentil.
If found guilty Nicolas Sarkozy could face jail and a fine. The fact that he is now under investigation already raises serious question marks over the former president's political future, after recent reports that he was planning a political comeback.
A statement from the prosecution authorities in Bordeaux said that Sarkozy was under investigation for 'abuse of weakness' of the mental frailty of Liliane Bettencourt. This alleged exploitation related not just to one meeting Sarkozy had at her home in February 2007 but to the whole of that election year, the prosecution pointed out. A medical examination ordered by magistrates in June 2011 found that she was suffering from “mixed dementia” and “a moderately severe stage [sic] of Alzheimer’s disease”.
The former president is claimed by witnesses to have visited the Bettencourt home on more than one occasion during the 2007 presidential campaign and to have collected campaign donations in cash. Sarkozy claims he visited the home only once, on February 24th, and denies taking money.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
The investigating magistrates have therefore been carrying out extensive inquiries in a bid to establish just how many times Sarkozy did visit the Bettencourt home in 2007. They have examined, for example, the private diaries of Liliane Bettencourt's friend, the photographer François-Marie Banier. In an entry dated April 26th 2007 he wrote: "[Bettencourt wealth manager Patrice] De Maistre told me that Sarkozy had again asked for money. I said yes."
De Maistre, himself under formal investigation in the affair, is now suspected by the judges of having been the prime mover in a "system of 'making available cash by way of compensation' from Februay 5th 2007 to December 7th 2009 of a total of 4 million euros", according to a judge's report dated March 22nd 2012 and signed by Judge Gentil.
The investigators have already established that there were two withdrawals from a Swiss-based Bettencourt account in 2007, each for 400,000 euros. One was made on February 5th, two days before De Maistre met Eric Woerth, then Sarkozy's campaign treasurer, and who is himself now under investigation. The second withdrawal took place on April 26th 2007, the date cited in Banier's diary.
Nicolas Sarkozy had already been placed under the status of 'assisted witness' after a 12-hour interview by judges in Bordeaux on November 22nd 2012. Under French law a person can only be placed under formal investigation, as Sarkozy has been now, if the authorities have found 'serious and concordant evidence' of guilt of a crime.
After the announcement that the former president was under formal investigation, his lawyer Thierry Herzog denounced it as “incoherent from a judicial point of view and unfair” and gave notice that he would appeal against the magistrates' decision.
Many of Sarkozy's supporters and former colleagues reacted with anger to the news. Former European affairs minister and vice-president of the UMP Laurent Wauquiez pointed to the timing of the decision by the judges in the case. “This placing under investigation happens in the very week when a formal investigation is opened against [former budget minister] Jérome Cahuzac,” said Wauquiez. “It happens at a time when all the opinion polls show that the French are putting their trust in Nicolas Sarkozy rather than a [President] François Hollande who is disappointing them. I don't like it when the justice system gives the impression in this way of being used for political ends.”
A similar message came from the UMP MP and mayor of Nice Christian Estrosi who said that “everyone will notice” that the Sarkozy investigation came 48 hours after a “socialist minister” was put under investigation. “I denounce these methods with their clear political overtones.” Former housing minister under Sarkozy Christine Boutin also expressed her horror at the news. “You get the impression that our political classes are under accusation!” she said. “We are in the process of getting caught up in things that will bring no solution to the French people.”
Another vice-president of the UMP and MP Thierry Mariani called into question the motives of the judges involved in the case, given the well-known conflicts between judges and Nicolas Sarkozy when he was in office. “I wonder of there is not a determination on the part of the judges, with ulterior motives. Impartiality is not the leading quality of certain magistrates,” he added, apparently singling out Judge Jean-Michel Gentil. “I ask myself if certain judges deliver justice in the name of the French people or on the basis of their own convictions.” He added that he believed the placing under investigation of the former head of state was a “political act” by judges who were “settling scores”.
Sarkozy' former prime minister François Fillon was slightly more measured in his response. Speaking from Moscow where he is on a visit, Fillon said: “I am astounded by this decision to put [Sarkozy] under investigation, a decision that seems to me as unfair as it is improbable.” He revealed that he had sent the former president a text message of support and friendship.
Presumption of innocence
On the Left, there was indignation at the way the Sarkozy investigation was being portrayed. Olivier Faure, Socialist Party MP for the Seine-et-Marne départment (broadly equivalent to a county) said: “You can defend Sarkozy's presumption of innocence without denigrating the justice system!”
A spokesman for the Socialist Party (PS) David Assouline said that being placed under investigation for abuse of weakness was “of course” a “serious matter for a former president of the Republic”. But he added: “Like all citizens in the same situation he benefits from the presumption of innocence.”
Further to the Left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, co-president of the radical left Parti du gauche, referred to the 2011 conviction of former Jacques Chirac for political corruption in Paris. “After Chirac here we have a second President of the Fifth Republic accused of extremely serious behaviour morally. In both cases the root of the problem is a model of democracy where money rules over all and everyone, in political choices as well as in personal practices.”
Enlargement : Illustration 2
During his questioning on Thursday, Nicolas Sarkozy was put face to face with a key figure in the Bettencourt affair Pascal Bonnefoy, Liliane Bettencourt's former butler. The judge Jean-Michel Gentil was hoping that the confrontation would help elucidate just how many times Sarkozy visited the Bettencourt home in 2007, which as mentioned above is a key factor in the allegations facing the former president.
Indeed, the whole affair began began with what became known as the ‘Butler Tapes’, 21 hours of secret recordings of conversations held inside Liliane Bettencourt’s private office in her town mansion in the plush Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine. Between May 2009 and May 2010, Pascal Bonnefoy had used a digital recorder, hidden behind a chair, to record meetings between the billionaire and her close entourage of lawyers and advisors.
At the time of the recordings, Liliane and her daughter and only child, Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers, 59, were locked in a bitter feud centred on Liliane’s relationship with François-Marie Banier, 65, a one-time author, celebrity photographer and high-society socialite. Beginning in December 2007, Bettencourt-Meyers launched legal action against Banier for taking advantage of her mother’s frail mental state to receive from her almost 1 billion euros of gifts, including life insurance policies and artworks.
Bettencourt-Meyers’ lawsuit led to the opening of a preliminary investigation into the conduct of Banier, while Liliane Bettencourt insisted she had willingly handed him the vast fortune. But the unseemly and very public battle between the richest woman in Europe and her daughter, who also applied for her mother to undergo a medical examination, would finally become a far graver affair.
The conversations – broadcast by Mediapart - were both extraordinary and disturbing. These included the revelation that France and Europe’s richest woman was involved in a tax fraud to the tune of 78 million euros, hidden in secret Swiss bank accounts; that Eric Woerth, who was French budget minister and treasurer of the then-ruling conservative UMP when his wife Florence was employed by Bettencourt as an investment advisor, was at the centre of a conflict of interest that had all the hallmarks of influence peddling; suspicions over the financing of the UMP party and the activities of Nicolas Sarkozy and, not least, that the presidency had intervened directly to stop the investigation launched over Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers’ lawsuit.
For more on the Bettencourt affair, click on the links below:
Judge links L'Oréal heiress cash withdrawals to Sarkozy campaign funding
Sarkozy campaign treasurer under investigation for illegal funding, influence peddling
L'Oréal heiress ordered to pay 77.7 million euros after tax scam probe
Behind the bettencourt affair: the battle for L'Oréal
A scandal too far: Bettencourt magistrate is disowned
French prosecutor in Bettencourt affair illegally spied journalists' phone calls
The eerie plot penned by L'Oréal family scandal dandy in 1971
Dinners, cash and Sarkozy: what Bettencourt's accountant told Mediapart
Bettencourt butler bites back: 'I saw L'Oréal family destroyed'
Bettencourt battle back after L'Oréal heiress signs away 143 million euros
The political guard watching over L'Oréal
Bettencourt chauffeur adds to Sarkozy campaign fund allegations
Bettencourt tapes stolen in mystery break-ins targetting Mediapart, Le Point and Le Monde
French interior minister drops libel action against Mediapart
Why we need a strong media in France
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English version by Michael Streeter