MAIL ONLINE: French president Nicolas Sarkozy has accused British financiers of being part of a 'plot' to destabilise his country's economy by spreading rumours his marriage was in crisis.
The furious president is is said to believe that 'Anglo-Saxon financiers' may have started rumours that he and wife Carla Bruni were both having affairs.
The comments from his spokesman came as former justice minister Rachida Dati formally denied that she was behind the rumours.
In the latest dramatic twist to the Elysee Palace soap opera, the 44-year-old single mother ‘denied vehemently’ having said that the President and his wife were both having affairs.
Her comments came as a criminal inquiry was launched into the scandal, with those found guilty facing prison.
The president's spokesman Pierre Charon has ordered a 'campaign of terror' against those who started the rumours, which first appeared on Twitter then in newspapers across Europe.
The Elyseé Palace seems persuaded that the rumours originated in the Anglo-Saxon dominated financial markets as part of a conspiracy to initiate speculation against French debt.
'We shall find out if there has now been some kind of organised plot involving financial movements,' Mr Charon said in an interview with internet newspaper Rue 89.
'The fact that these rumours were spread in the newspapers in Britain, Germany and Switzerland makes us think of a conspiracy while France is preparing to take over the presidency of the G20 in 2011,' he said.
France's first couple were at the centre of media frenzy last month after false rumours erupted that Ms Bruni was having an affair with pop star Benjamin Biolay, six years her junior.
Mr Sarkozy was said to have sought comfort in the arms his attractive ecology minister Chantal Jouanno, a claim she has denied.
Those responsible for starting the rumours will be 'hunted down and punbished'[sic] and a criminal investigation had been launched by police and intelligence agencies, Mr Charon said.
He added: 'We are going to war on these ignominious reports. We want to take things as far as we can to make sure this will never happen again. We want those who tried to spread fear to feel fear themselves.'
France's left-wing Liberation [sic] newspaper described the language used as 'paranoid'.
French daily Sud-Ouest wrote: 'Can't Mr sarkozy see that it is precisely this kind of threatening language that makes people want to target him in the first place.'
And reporters at the Journal du Dimanche - which repeated the rumours in a blog on the paper's website - protested what they called the 'unprecedented bullying and inquisitorial' attitude of the Elysie. >>> Mail Foreign Service | Tuesday, April 06, 2010
LE POINT: Rumeurs sur la vie privée du couple présidentiel : RÉACTION - Me Herzog, avocat de Sarkozy : "Je ne peux pas exclure que ce soit une machination" >>> Par Cyriel Martin | Mardi 06 Avril 2010
TRIBUNE DE GENÈVE: Rumeurs sur les Sarkozy: "Rachida Dati n'est pas impliquée" : FRANCE | Le rôle prêté à Rachida Dati dans la propagation de rumeurs autour de la vie privée du couple présidentiel est "impensable" et susceptible de relever de la diffamation, a déclaré l'avocat de l'ex-garde des Sceaux, Me Georges Kiejman. >>> AFP | Mardi 06 Avril 2010
