WORLD> Europe
Ex-French PM to stand trial
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-11-20 07:51

Former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has been ordered to stand trial for his role in an alleged plot to smear Nicolas Sarkozy, now president, when they were rival ministers.

Villepin has consistently denied wrongdoing in the case, dubbed the "Clearstream Affair", in which he has been accused of trying to torpedo Sarkozy's reputation with faked documents before the 2007 presidential election which Sarkozy won.

"Nothing justifies this decision to go to trial," Villepin said in a statement late on Tuesday after a source close to the case said he had been charged with "complicity in libel".

The trial, likely to be an extended one, is expected to begin in 2010 and to reopen one of the more poisonous scandals of the era of former President Jacques Chirac.

It will pick through a murky tale worthy of a modern-day Alexandre Dumas, featuring spies, secret bank accounts and subterfuge at the highest levels of the French state.

Villepin, a former diplomat best known for his denunciation of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, was one of Chirac's closest allies, first as chief of staff and then as foreign and interior minister before becoming prime minister in 2005.

Sarkozy became a plaintiff in the Clearstream case in 2006, asking magistrates to hunt down those behind the scandal, and Villepin complained in his statement that he was a victim of legal bias.

"Throughout the judicial investigation, the reality of the facts and of the law has been twisted in favor of a single plaintiff who is at the same time president of the republic," Villepin said.

As well as untangling the details of the case, the trial will highlight the bitter rivalry between Villepin and his one-time interior minister Sarkozy as the two vied to succeed Chirac in the Elysee Palace.