Keyword: Bettencourt

Angry former president likens eavesdropping to actions of former East German police and says Republic's principles have been 'trampled' on.

Nicolas Sarkozy et son avocat, Thierre Herzog. © Reuters

Mediapart can reveal the content of the controversial phone bugging carried out on former president Nicolas Sarkozy. Details of seven phone taps show that the ex-head of state set up what amounts to a dirty tricks operation to neutralise the judges who are investigating him. The extraordinary content of the calls confirm that Sarkozy's team used senior judge Gilbert Azibert to find out information about the Bettencourt affair. And that Sarkozy's lawyer Thierry Herzog was kept informed by a mole in the upper echelons of the state about the progress of the investigation over the Libyan funding of the former president's 2007 election campaign. As Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report, it is the start of a new state scandal involving Nicolas Sarkozy.

If found guilty former French president could face jail and fine for 'taking advantage' of Liliane Bettencourt, France's richest woman.

Former president Nicolas Sarkozy was hauled back before a judge over claims he accepted envelopes stuffed with cash from France's richest woman.

Olivier Metzner had one of the most glittering legal careers in France, and was involved in famous cases such as Clearstream and the ongoing Bettencourt saga. But the man from a modest farming family is dead. His body was discovered floating off the private island he owned off Brittany and an apparent suicide note was in his pocket. Mediapart's legal affair specialist Michel Deléan pays tribute to this hard-working loner who in his rare leisure time enjoyed cigars, sailing and opera.

C'est une première pour un ancien président de la République. Le domicile, le cabinet d'avocats et les bureaux de Nicolas Sarkozy ont été perquisitionnés mardi, dans le cadre de l'affaire Bettencourt. Philippe Courroye est convoqué devant le CSM, et la juge Prévost-Desprez se voit reprocher une « violation du secret professionnel ».

© Reuters

French Minister of Health, Labour and Employment, Xavier Bertrand (pictured), is to stand trial for slander after accusing Mediapart of using "fascist methods" in its exposure of the L'Oréal-Bettencourt scandal, when it revealed the dissimulation in secret foreign bank accounts of part of the l'Oréal heiress's fortune, the shady and intimate links between French politicians and the world of business and finance, suspected illegal political party funding and grave ministerial conflicts of interest. Mediapart Editor-in-Chief Edwy Plenel explains the background and context of what may prove to be a landmark case.

Liliane Bettencourt. © (DR)

The so-called 'butler tapes', first revealed by Mediapart in June, hit world headlines and created the Bettencourt affair, a tale of influence peddling, tax-evasion and collusion among the high-flyers of the French political and business establishment. Now Mediapart exclusively reveals what Pascal Bonnefoy, butler to L'Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, subsequently told police about the behind-the-doors scenes in the home of Europe's wealthiest woman. He testified that she was the subject of physical and verbal abuse, the prey of an inner circle of "mature men" who hide behind "a tired and fragile woman", including one who he said had the habit of urinating in her plant pots.