By Siegfried Mortkowitz Jan 26, 2007, 10:48 GMT
Paris - Allegations of spying, lawsuits, mud-slinging and opponents nearly coming to blows - with less than three months to go until the French presidential election, the campaign has taken a distinct turn for the melodramatic.
The cause was an article in the left-leaning satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaine that claimed a member of Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy's staff had asked the domestic intelligence service RG - the equivalent of the American FBI - to investigate an advisor to Segolene Royal, Sarkozy's Socialist opponent for the presidency.
The advisor in question was former Greenpeace France head Bruno Rebelle, who had recently joined Royal's staff, and he immediately filed a lawsuit in a Paris court against unknown persons for invasion of privacy.
Royal herself reacted with restraint, but her party chairman - and companion - Francois Hollande demanded an immediate verification of the allegations and denounced 'the accumulation of functions of the interior minister, with all the means at his disposal, and the responsibility of being a candidate for the presidency.'
This combination, Hollande charged, 'inspires every suspicion, makes one think of all kinds of manipulations.'
'Ridiculous,' Sarkozy shot back, and repeatedly denied he or any member of his office had asked for a probe of Rebelle or any other member of Royal's staff. And he went further.
Advising Hollande to let 'Madame Royal campaign,' Sarkozy declared, 'Mr Hollande is macho. The (Socialist Party) chose a candidate. It is not Mr Hollande who is the candidate.'
But the dramatic high point - and the low point of the controversy - was reached in the usually staid French Senate on Thursday.
It began when when Socialist Senator Jean-Luc Melenchon told the body, and particularly Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, who was present, 'We want a clean campaign and we want you to respond to us.'
Sarkozy ally Brice Hortefeux, a junior minister in the government, then took the floor and replied by accusing Melenchon of leaking to the press intimate details of Royal's campaign.
He was apparently referring to a recent incident in which a member of the Socialist Party inner circle allowed journalists from the daily Le Monde to listen to a Royal campaign strategy meeting via his cellphone.
Melenchon shot out of his seat, rushed down the aisle and confronted Hortefeux, actually jostling him physically. He was finally restrained by two ushers and returned to his seat.
After initially denying that there had been an investigation of Rebelle, the RG admitted Thursday that a file existed about him but that it had been updated in January 'automatically and without an order' being given because he had joined Royal's staff.
However, journalists for two different media who were allowed to look at the RG file on Rebelle apparently saw two different versions of it.
Since 1994, after an RG agent was caught spying on a Socialist Party meeting, the agency has been forbidden to meddle in domestic political affairs.
RG officials say its priority now is the fight against terrorism and other threats to public order, such as urban violence.
However, as some observers have noted, this does not mean that government officials do not give in to the temptation to use the spy network for political purposes. But proof of this is very hard to come by.
On Friday, another chapter of the controversy was opened when the daily Le Parisien published an interview with Royal's younger brother, Antoine, in which he claimed that an RG agent had questioned him for two hours.
Antoine Royal described it as part of a 'campaign of defamation' against his sister. 'These are Sarkozy's methods,' he charged. 'I was involved in an affair and the interior minister is using it today to destabilize my sister.'
Antoine Royal was placed under investigation last year for fraud and misappropriation of public funds.
Whether or not Sarkozy had anything to do with any probe of Rebelle or any other Royal ally, the affair has put a spotlight on the advantages he enjoys as interior minister and the potential for abuse that exists.
On Friday, a number of newspapers urged him to resign from the government and put himself above all suspicion.
'This affair clearly rests on the question of whether Mr Sarkozy remains at the interior ministry,' the influential daily Le Monde wrote. 'To become as 'irreproachable' as the democracy he claims to embody and not give rise to endless suspicions, Mr. Sarkozy must - even in his own interest - leave the government as soon as possible.'
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