Paris - France's political elite was reeling yesterday after the highly damaging allegations of kickbacks centred on President Jacques Chirac, spread to embroil a former Socialist finance minister and dragged in the name of the celebrated fashion designer, Karl Lagerfeld.
Mr Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a leading ministerial light until forced by graft allegations to resign from Mr Lionel Jospin's cabinet last year, admitted that for nearly two years he had been sitting on potentially devastating corruption evidence against Mr Chirac.
The disgraced former finance minister confirmed he had been given a now-infamous videotape last April in which Jean-Claude Mery, a property developer and senior official in Mr Chirac's RPR party, directly implicated the president in a vast covert fundraising operation.