Charges Loom for Former French PM

De Villepin linked to dirty campaign against rival Sarkozy
By Wesley Oliver,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 6, 2007 4:29 AM CDT
Charges Loom for Former French PM
France's outgoing President Jacques Chirac, right, speaks with Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin prior to a lunch at the Elysee Palace, following Chirac's final weekly cabinet meeting, in Paris, Wednesday, May 9, 2007. Chirac is to turn over power to Sarkozy on May 16 after 12 years in office. (AP...   (Associated Press)

Former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin is expected to face criminal conspiracy charges following the discovery of new evidence linking him to a dirty tricks campaign against President Nicolas Sarkozy, the Times of London reports. Police yesterday searched his Paris home after investigators found computer data suggesting he directed a plot to implicate Sarkozy in a 2004 bribery scandal.

De Villepin has insisted he had nothing to do with forged bank documents that falsely suggested Sarkozy, then finance minister, received kickbacks in a sale of French warships in what's been dubbed the Clearstream affair. De Villepin, who lost his post when Sarkozy won the presidency, is writing a biography of Napoleon that reportedly is a veiled attack on Sarkozy. (More Dominique de Villepin stories.)

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