L'affaire Sarkozy........Gallic Watergate?

[marmar]

from the Independent UK




Sarkozy accused of using Watergate-style tricks to muzzle the French press
'Le Monde' launches legal action against President, claiming he used security services to find insider who leaked information to paper

By John Lichfield in Paris


In a scandal having many parallels with the Watergate affair, President Nicolas Sarkozy was accused by France's most prestigious newspaper yesterday of illegally using the counter-intelligence service to muzzle the press.

Le Monde said that the President's office had deployed France's equivalent of MI5 like a "cabinet noir", or dirty-tricks operation, to uncover the source of leaks in the L'Oréal family feud and political financing scandal. The newspaper said that it had started a legal action against "persons unknown" at the Elysée Palace for breaking a century-old French law which guarantees the secrecy of journalistic sources.

Le Monde said that the French security service, the DCRI, had tracked down a senior figure in the Justice Minister's office as the source of embarrassing leaks to the newspaper in July on the so-called "Bettencourt-Woerth" affair. The official, a long-term aide of the Justice Minister, Michèle Alliot-Marie, had been forced out of his post and sent on a minor legal mission to French Guyana.

The Elysée Palace flatly denied the accusation. It said "the presidency of the Republic has never given the slightest instruction to any (state) service" to investigate leaks in the L'Oréal affair. Other newspapers had already reported, however, that the official, David Sénat, had been punished for leaking witness interviews in the Bettencourt scandal to the press. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/sarkozy-accused-of-using-watergatestyle-tricks-to-muzzle-the-french-press-2078452.html