Nicolas Sarkozy's lawyer on Sunday launched a fresh salvo against the judge who charged the former president with taking financial advantage of France's richest woman, as a public outcry among Sarkozy supporters grows, reports France 24.
But according to an opinion poll, the allegations made against Sarkozy last week as part of an illegal party funding probe appeared not to have affected his chances of staging a presidential comeback in 2017 -- which he has hinted at.
"One can in the very least question the impartiality of this judge," Sarkozy's lawyer Thierry Herzog told Sunday newspaper Journal du Dimanche.
Judge Jean-Michel Gentil caused a huge stir on Thursday by summoning Sarkozy and placing him under judicial investigation for allegedly abusing the weakness of 90-year-old L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt.
Investigators suspect up to four million euros ($5.2 million) of Bettencourt's cash made its way into the coffers of Sarkozy's UMP party.
Sarkozy has repeatedly denied claims he accepted cash-stuffed envelopes from the world's richest woman -- whose mental capacity began to deteriorate in 2006, medical experts say -- to fund his successful 2007 campaign.
Since Thursday, Sarkozy's backers have railed against the judge, who in turn has made it known through his lawyer that he is "tired of being abused while trying to conduct his work as honestly as possible."
In the interview Sunday, Herzog said Gentil was among 81 other judges who had put their names to an opinion column -- published on June 12 last year by leading newspaper Le Monde -- accusing Sarkozy and his predecessor Jacques Chirac of "wishing to protect the corrupt".
Read more of this report from France 24.
Read Mediapart's coverage of Nicolas Sarkozy and the Bettencourt affair here.