PARIS -- Former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, one of France's most powerful men over the past decade, was accused by investigating magistrates yesterday of using intelligence operatives to try to smear President Nicolas Sarkozy when the two were presidential contenders.
After questioning Villepin, the two judges formally named him as a suspect in a case involving a fabricated list of political personalities who were said to have received kickbacks. Villepin could face charges including complicity in slander and complicity in using false documents.
Investigators accuse Villepin of orchestrating a complex smear campaign in which private operatives attempted to link Sarkozy to a list of secret bank accounts they are suspected of fabricating. Villepin is accused of directing spy chiefs to conduct a secret investigation of the purported accounts.
In the French judicial system, being named a suspect amounts to the filing of preliminary charges.
Villepin, 53, said after leaving the courthouse yesterday morning that he had done nothing wrong during his tenure as foreign and interior minister, the posts he held when the suspected offenses were committed.
"I repeat once again this morning that at no moment did I request an investigation of political personalities, that at no moment did I participate in a political maneuver," Villepin said. "I acted against international threats; I acted to confront threats to our economic interests. It's strictly in that framework in which I acted. It was my duty as minister."
Nevertheless, the accusations are a blow to Villepin, who ended his term as prime minister in May after more than a decade as the top protege, adviser and would-be heir to former President Jacques Chirac.
Villepin drew worldwide attention in 2003 when he gave an impassioned speech at the United Nations opposing U.S. military action in Iraq.
After that moment in the spotlight, Villepin did his best to position himself for a presidential run.
He and Chirac waged a bitter internal war in the ruling center-right coalition to prevent Sarkozy from becoming a candidate in this year's presidential race. But Sarkozy, a veteran campaigner and skillful strategist, triumphed over the aristocratic Villepin, who has never run for office and is resented by many in his own party as aloof and long-winded.
The newspaper Le Parisen quoted an unidentified presidential adviser yesterday as saying that Villepin "wanted to play with fire. He got burned. He always had a passion for Fouche, Napoleon's feared chief of the secret police."
The scandal originated in a previous scandal involving suspected multimillion-dollar kickbacks generated by the sale of French frigates to Taiwan in 1991.
Investigators have accused Jean Louis Gergorin, a business executive and close associate of Villepin, and Imad Lahoud, a computer expert who worked for Gergorin, of involvement in the creation of a fake list of secret accounts in Clearstream, a Luxembourg bank, and of providing that list to investigators in the kickback case.
According to government officials, public statements by witnesses and media accounts, Villepin summoned Gergorin to the Foreign Ministry in January 2004, told him that Chirac wanted a secret investigation of politicians and top officials on the list, and enlisted him as a secret operative to transmit information to investigators.
Sarkozy was traveling in Africa and did not comment yesterday. Yves Jego, the spokesman for his UMP party, said it was an "absolute necessity" to get to the bottom "of an attempted plot against Nicolas Sarkozy."
Sebastian Rotella writes for the Los Angeles Times.