THE SUNDAY TIMES: After rumours of extramarital affairs, telephone taps and a plot to destabilise the French state, the latest episode in France’s presidential soap opera features efforts by Carla Bruni, the president’s wife, to rein in “the firm”.
A cluster of Nicolas Sarkozy’s closest advisers called themselves “the firm” years ago in a tribute to the ruthless lawyers of the John Grisham thriller. Like guard dogs, they have protected “Sarko”, always ready to rip his opponents to shreds.
Unleashed last week, however, one of these political pitbulls wreaked so much havoc that the nation was left wondering whether its master had lost his mind.
Just as gossip about marital discord in the Sarkozy household had dissipated, Pierre Charon, who handles sensitive matters for the president, managed to reignite “l’affaire Twitter” with claims of a plot emanating from abroad to discredit the French leader by spreading rumours about his love life over the internet.
The culprits would be rooted out, he promised, by a criminal investigation.
It was whispered that Dominique de Villepin, the former prime minister and Sarkozy’s chief rival, had played a role in disseminating gossip that the president was having an affair with Chantal Jouanno, his ecology minister, and that Bruni, the singer and former model, was in a relationship with another musician. All have denied any infidelity.
Charon announced that the domestic intelligence service was investigating the rumours, which first surfaced on Twitter, the internet social networking site, in February.
One of the culprits, he had earlier alleged, was Rachida Dati, a former justice minister and a fallen presidential favourite. Sarkozy abruptly cancelled her car and bodyguards and told aides that he did not want to see the Euro MP and Paris district mayor ever again.
She suffered further humiliation when she went to Geneva to address an expatriate meeting on behalf of the president’s centre-right UMP party. Instead of booking her into the five-star hotel she had requested, the party, citing a need to crack down on expenses, put her in a room at the airport overlooking a car park.
Dati was said to have been on the verge of tears when told by reception that the hotel was full and she would have to share her room with a parliamentary aide. “That’s what happens when you attack the firm,” Charon told a group of Sarkozy supporters last week.
Dati has threatened to sue him or anyone else who links her to the rumours and appealed on Wednesday for an audience with the president so she could persuade him of her innocence. She has long been at loggerheads with Charon and other members of “the firm” such as Brice Hortefeux, the interior minister, who is one of Sarkozy’s best friends.
The bad feeling dates back to before Sarkozy was president, when Dati told Cécilia, his second wife, about his affair with a journalist from Le Figaro newspaper. >>> Matthew Campbell in Paris | Sunday, April 11, 2010
