FRANCE:French prime minister Dominique de Villepin was yesterday questioned by judges over an alleged smear campaign to damage his party rival, the centre-right presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy.
The saga has threatened to mire Jacques Chirac's last months as president, revealing the poisonous feud in government between his protege, Mr de Villepin, and the ambitious interior minister, Mr Sarkozy, who is running as president promising a "clean break" with the Chirac era.
The alleged plot dates back to 2004 when an anonymous source wrote to a judge accusing politicians and business people of holding secret bank accounts with the Luxembourg bank Clearstream. The accounts were said to hold kickbacks from the $2.8 billion sale of French frigates to Taiwan in 1991. On the list was Mr Sarkozy.
Paris braced itself for what seemed to be the corruption scandal of the decade. But the judge quickly established that the accusations were totally false and the accounts did not exist.
Mr Sarkozy complained that the affair had been used to discredit him and a judicial inquiry is now trying to establish who wrote the poison-pen letter.
The president and prime minister deny taking part in a dirty tricks campaign.