Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy is expected to face questioning as soon as mid-June when he loses his immunity a month after his successor Francois Hollande officially assumes office today.
Hollande is swon in today as new President of Republic of France.
The most immediately dangerous case for Sarkozy involves a series of overlapping inquiries surrounding illegal campaign financing by L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, France’s richest woman.
Magistrates are investigating claims that Bettencourt’s staff handed over envelopes stuffed with cash to Sarkozy aides to finance his 2007 campaign, with her former book-keeper testifying to one 50,000 euro ($65,000) donation.
However, Sarkozy denies any wrongdoing. But the conviction last year of his predecessor Jacques Chirac on graft charges has shown that French courts are now willing to go after former leaders.
“In the past the kind of behaviour that Nicolas Sarkozy is accused of was very common, but the courts did not launch prosecutions,” said Philippe Braud, a political analyst at the Paris-based Centre for Political Studies.
Under France’s electoral code, individual election campaign contributions may not exceed 4,600 euros.
Claims were also made during the campaign that former Libyan strongman Moamer Kadhafi’s regime financed Sarkozy’s 2007 campaign to the tune of 50 million euros, but no investigation is known to have been opened.
However, Sarkozy has denounced that claim as “grotesque” and said he will sue French media website Mediapart over the reports.
Also in more serious but harder to prove allegations, magistrates are probing whether a 2002 Karachi bombing that killed 11 French engineers was revenge for the cancellation of bribes secretly promised to Pakistani officials.
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