“My wife came with five books, I sat on one of the steps in my office, I started to write the five signatures. Madame Marchand [editor's note Michèle 'Mimi' Marchand, boss of the paparazzi agency Bestimage] explained to me that it was for one of my big fans. She told me that he was outside, she went to fetch him, and when he arrived I had written the five dedications and gave them to him,” Nicolas Sarkozy explained to detectives in June.
During this episode, which took place on December 17th 2020, the former head of state scribbled on one of the copies of his book 'Le Temps des Tempêtes' ('Stormy Times'): “For Noël, Thank you for everything … Your friend”. Then, as usual, he signed his name in a flourish of long vertical lines.
This would not have been so serious if the Noël, in question, Noël Dubus, who has been convicted for fraud several times, had not been the key man in the public retraction made just a few weeks earlier by Ziad Takieddine, a central witness in the affair concerning claims that Libya helped fund Nicolas Sarkozy's successful 2007 presidential campaign. It was he who had arranged for Michèle Marchand, a photographer and a journalist from Paris Match magazine to visit Beirut in October 2020 to where Takieddine had fled from France. It was he who coached that same witness to insist publicly that “Nicolas Sarkozy never received money for the presidential campaign”. And it was also Dubus who paid Takieddine's lawyer and, in particular, promised the witness a sum of four million dollars in exchange for retracting his earlier testimony.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
What might the words “Thanks for everything” hide? Was Nicolas Sarkozy's book dedication a confession? Was the ex-head of state informed of the operations carried out by Noël Dubus, who in June 2021 was placed under investigation in the “witness tampering” case, and to what extent?
It was during his questioning on June 13th and 14th that Nicolas Sarkozy sought to explain himself in the offices of the police's anti-corruption squad, the Office Central de Lutte contre la Corruption et les Infractions Financières et Fiscales (OCLCIFF) at Nanterre west of Paris. This followed a search of his home that aimed to reconstruct events from the book-signing episode. As Libération newspaper has revealed, the ex-head of state has now been summonsed to appear this October before the judges in charge of this new case, one that runs alongside the Libyan funding affair itself.
The 'contact' that led to the 'scoop'
“I don't know Mr Dubus,” stated Nicolas Sarkozy on June 13th as he began addressing the issue. “I've never had a meeting with him. He doesn't have my phone number, I don't have his phone number, I don't know what he does, I don't know his profession. I'm categorical about this. Categorical!” The former-president added: “I saw Mr Dubus once.” He then explained the “circumstances” of this meeting.
On December 17th 2020, there was a Thanksgiving feel in the Sarkozy household, not unlike that of a Hollywood movie. A family dinner was being prepared, the ex-president's children and grandchildren were already there, and 14 or 15 people were in the living room, he said. Meanwhile suitcases were lined up in the entrance hall, ahead of an imminent holiday trip to the Indian Ocean.
“When I arrived that evening Madame Marchand came out of my wife's office and my wife said to me 'you know Mimi of course, she's come with five copies of 'Le Temps des Tempêtes',' my latest book, plus Post-it notes, for me to sign them,” he continued. “Naturally I signed them, and like I always do I copied what was on the Post-it notes …. I told myself I'd get it done straight away.” Nicolas Sarkozy asked Michèle Marchand if it was for “friends of hers”. She replied that it was for one of the former president's “great fans”.
The ex-head of state continued: “She told me that he was her contact with Takieddine. I asked her to repeat herself. I note that it was a month and a half after the much talked about programme with Takieddine on BFM [editor's note, BFMTV the new channel] which was on November 11th. She told me that it was for her contact and said that it was good to sign it because he was waiting at the bottom of the cul-de-sac where my house is. I asked if he was the contact who enabled the 'scoop' to take place and I asked Mimi [editor's note, Michèle Marchand] if I could give the books to him in person.”
So Michèle Marchand went to fetch Noël Dubus and brought him to the former president's house. However, when she was questioned as part of the investigation, Marchand, the paparazzi boss, celebrity intermediary and close friend of Nicolas Sarkozy's wife Carla Bruni, had strongly denied having introduced Noël Dubus to the former head of state. Instead, the paparazzi boss, who has been placed under investigation in the case, suggested that the signatures had perhaps been obtained by Noël Dubus when Sarkozy had done a signing at a bookshop near him in the capital's 16th arrondissement. Yet now, against all expectation, and although Marchand herself had kept it secret, the former president acknowledged that Noël Dubus had indeed come to his house. And he said it was 'Mimi' who had got him to come, and who had written her own dedications for him to copy on the Post-it notes.
Nicolas Sarkozy remembered the man arriving at his house. “He crossed the small garden, he came up onto the terrace, we were in the entrance hall, my family were in the living room and the suitcases were in the entrance hall, my wife came out of her office and I was in the middle,” said the former president. “I greeted this gentleman and I said to him: 'Madame Marchand told me that you were the one who acted as a contact for her agency, thank you' and I handed the books to him.”
In a flurry of activity Nicolas Sarkozy had also signed books for Noël Dubus's parents (“For Claudine and Jean Pierre who can be proud of their son”), his assistant Lisa (“For Lisa, thank you for your remarkable work”) and to his assistant's mother (“For Nadia, who can be proud of her daughter”).
“You've said that these words were copied from Post-it notes, do you often do it this way?” asked the detectives. “Not often – always,” Nicolas Sarkozy replied. The detectives persisted: “You signed it 'your friend', is that a term that you often use in book signings?” The ex-head of state insisted: “It has no personal meaning.”
According to the former president the meeting with Noël Dubus lasted “less than five minutes”. He told the detectives: “He didn't sit down, he stayed in the entrance hall and he left with Madame Marchand as I recall, happy with the books and, it's true, I shook his hand.”
'A presidential signature'
That evening Noël Dubus was quick to send photos of these book dedications to several friends. It was this that made detectives aware of the signing when they later went through mobile phone records, and which then persuaded the judge to order handwriting checks. “Ohhhh I want one. I'm jealous. Really cool,” was the reaction of his friend Arnaud de la Villesbrune, the publicist who made false invoices to hide the funding of the fake retraction operation. “Is that Russian below?” joked an air stewardess friend about Nicolas Sarkozy's distinctive signature. “It's the signature of a PR,” explained Noël Dubus, using shorthand for 'president of the Republic'. “Oh wow, classy,” she replied.
During questioning Noël Dubus had stated that the “only thing” that he asked of Nicolas Sarkozy was these book signings “for the end of year celebrations”. The judge in charge of the investigation Vincent Lemonier asked him: “Did you hope for a future favour from Nicolas Sarkozy?” He replied: “Yes, but Mimi always told me 'you never ask Sarkozy for money'.” However, financial negotiations do seem to have taken place - but between intermediaries. On one occasion during questioning Noël Dubus said that he was offered “a sum of seven million [editor's note, dollars] of which four [million] were for Takieddine”. The messages retrieved between Dubus and Takieddine are quite clear on this.
This question was put to Nicolas Sarkozy himself. “To obtain Takieddine's retraction Noël Dubus dangled the promise of a large sum of money and the purchase of his Parisian apartment which was subject to a judicial confiscation order,” said the detectives. “He also forwarded funds to him in Lebanon, and paid for some of his expenses including his lawyers' fees and various presents such as an iPhone for example. What did you know about all that?” The former president replied: “Nothing, absolutely nothing. Either directly or indirectly.”
So what did he know exactly? First of all, from October 2020 he knew that Michèle Marchand was working away and secretly preparing a 'scoop'. The queen of the paparazzi, who had helped coach Carla Bruni on public relations issues for years and who helped with publicity for the release of the singer's albums, often encountered the former president at the couple's home. One such occasion was in October 2020 “before or after” October 9th, the date on which Carla Bruni's new album came out. “They were in her office, I went into her office and I greeted Madame Marchand,” said Nicolas Sarkozy during questioning. “Carla said to me 'Mimi might have some good news for you.' Madame Marchand said to me : 'Takieddine wants to take back his accusations against you.'”
The former president insisted that at this point he “burst out laughing” and replied to Mimi Marchand that she was “very kind” but that he “didn't believe it for a second”. This “inveterate liar” had already “changed his story six times,” said Nicolas Sarkozy of Takieddine. He insisted that he then heard no more news about this “Takieddine affair” until the day when “all of Paris was buzzing over this scoop from BFM” who had announced that “Takieddine was going to speak”. That was on November 11th 2020.
However, the claim he had heard “no more news” about the affair is not entirely accurate if one believes the former boss of Paris Match, Hervé Gattegno, who was also heavily involved in this 'scoop'. In an exchange with Paris Match owner Arnaud Lagardère that was later retrieved by detectives, the journalist said that he had learnt that Michèle Marchand had “warned” Sarkozy about it “believing she was doing the right thing and wanting to show off in the eyes of so-and-so”. In Gattegno's view it was “madness” however. “In one fell swoop he's being handed this thing, how do you think he can resist that? And you know Sarko, he wants to get involved in everything, you know, he wants to take charge.”
'Mimi's' visits
Hervé Gattegno has refused to elaborate on the content of this intercepted conversation. So we do not know how Nicolas Sarkozy might have tried to “take charge” of the matter. The former president himself fudged the issue when questioned. “What should carry weight for detectives such as yourselves are tangible elements that would indicate that I wanted to 'take charge', there are none, and there can't be any given the little contact that I had with Madame Marchand,” he stated.
Michèle Marchand was cautious in her private conversations and used different pseudonyms for the former president – 'Zébulon' which is the French version of the name 'Zebedee' in 'The Magic Roundabout' children's television programme or 'Ines' for his initials 'NS' - while discussing her meetings with him and discussing his mood in her messages to Noël Dubus and others. Detectives cross-checked the diaries of 'Mimi', Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni, and sometimes also the geolocation of their mobile phones. In the evening of October 14th 2020, the evening of her departure for Beirut, Mimi Marchand left the Sarkozys' home and called the photographer Sébastien Valiela who was to accompany her.
Detectives questioned Carla Bruni about that occasion. “On that evening did Mimi Marchand ask your husband for his agreement to go ahead with the Ziad Takieddine interview?” they asked. “Not at all,” the singer replied. “She never spoke to my husband to discuss that interview. The only time she spoke to my husband about this interview was after [its publication] on my telephone. I was with Mimi, and I said so to my husband. My husband then said to Mimi 'Ah, well, bravo on this scoop' and thanked her.”
The former president said he had “no recollection of having seen Madame Marchand” on October 14th nor on certain other days either. For detectives revealed that on November 1st and November 7th the public relations woman's mobile phone signal had been detected close to his home. Had there been other visits? “During this period I never had meetings with Madame Marchand, never!” said Nicolas Sarkozy, getting annoyed.
“Madame Marchand doesn't have my mobile number. I have no dedicated means [of contacting] Madame Marchand, though I sometimes spoke with Madame Marchand on my wife's mobile,” he told detectives. “I did that on one occasion that I remember very well. On November 11th 2020 … I was at home in the late afternoon with my wife and we were watching BFM, I told my wife to call Madame Marchand to tell her that she was right and that I'd been wrong about what would happen.” At 7pm that day the former president published a long statement on Facebook rejoicing that “the truth has finally come out” over Takieddine's evidence.
The following month, on the eve of the end-of-year festivities, a second and even more important stage of the fake retraction operation took place in Lebanon. This was when Ziad Takieddine signed his written 'confession' in front of a local notary, directly blaming the judges investigating the Libyan election financing affair. A news story from the French news agency AFP referring to this new 'scoop' was emailed by Mimi Marchand to Carla Bruni-Sarkozy on December 24th, accompanied by the simple words “Happy Christmas”.
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- The original French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter