FRANCE: The interior minister and second-in-charge of the French government, Nicolas Sarkozy, spent two hours with judges investigating bogus corruption allegations yesterday.
Mr Sarkozy saw judges Jean-Marie d'Huy and Henri Pons in their chambers at his own request as a civil plaintiff in the "Clearstream affair", which threatens to bring down prime minister Dominique de Villepin.
"I want to know who put my name on that list, why, when and how," Mr Sarkozy told the judges, referring to a fake list of French politicians who were accused of holding accounts in the Clearstream bank in Luxembourg.
"I was received in my role as a victim," Mr Sarkozy told waiting journalists. "I told [ the judges] I want the truth and I have every confidence they will find it."
Gen Philippe Rondot, the intelligence official at the heart of the affair, said in testimony leaked last week that Mr Villepin, who was then foreign minister, asked him to investigate the list in January 2004.
Mr Villepin denies ordering the secret enquiry, and has also denied telling Gen Rondot that orders came from President Jacques Chirac.
François Fillon, the former cabinet minister who is now Mr Sarkozy's political adviser, explained Mr Villepin's alleged motive on France-Inter radio.
"Someone used irregular means to try to disqualify Nicolas Sarkozy from the race for the Élysée: someone who it seems had little sense of ethics and doubted his personal capacity to take him on in a fair contest," Mr Fillon said.
"Either the prime minister can produce irrefutable proof that the whole affair was a fabrication and that he had no hand in it, or the president must draw the consequences and change prime minister," Mr Fillon continued.
French politicians have used intelligence services to weaken rivals before.
The former socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin was accused of dispatching agents to investigate allegations of a secret presidential child in Japan. But this is the first time such methods may have been used within the ruling right-wing party.
"I believe the image of France is deeply affected, that the way in which the state is run reveals a deep crisis of our institutions and our democracy," Jean-Marc Ayrault, the Socialist Party group leader in the National Assembly said, announcing that his party will stage a no-confidence motion.
Libération newspaper said Mr Sarkozy's handling of the affair has been "a masterpiece of success" but that he now "risks being buried by the collapse caused by his own brilliant undermining." Le Monde noted that Mr Sarkozy "is at the centre of every scenario".
The Élysée denied reports that President Chirac had asked Mr Sarkozy to take over as prime minister, but Mr Sarkozy's advisers continue to debate whether the prime minister's office would be a trap or a challenge to which the presidential candidate must rise.
In his role as president of the UMP party, Mr Sarkozy addressed 5,000 members in Nîmes last night.
The long speech about globalisation, Europe and France's place in the world was intended to sound presidential.
"Together we shall build the path that will bring France into the world of tomorrow," Mr Sarkozy said.
Some of his entourage argue that it would be difficult for him to advocate a "strategy of rupture" with the president's policies if he served as his last prime minister.
Last night Mr Sarkozy criticised "a France that has been sick and damaged for 25 years, which disappoints hopes".
He denounced the Clearstream affair as the result of "pathetic machinations cooked up and orchestrated by apprentice plotters in the attempt to smear".
In a comment to reporters during "Europe Day" celebrations, Mr Villepin said "the commotion" about Clearstream "does not have much importance". Libération said: "Villepin is hanging by a thread, the one that ties him to the Élysée."