Sarkozy faces slew of probes after immunity ends
Outgoing French leader Nicolas Sarkozy will face a slew of legal probes into corruption and campaign financing violations after he leaves office next week and loses his presidential immunity, AFP reported.
The most immediately dangerous case for Sarkozy involves a series of overlapping inquiries surrounding alleged 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.
Under France's electoral code, individual election campaign contributions may not exceed 4,600 euros.
Sarkozy and his camp have also been accused of ordering an illegal police investigation to identify an official leaking information on the Bettencourt scandal to a journalist from the newspaper Le Monde.
Judges have charged both a prosecutor close to Sarkozy and the head of France's domestic intelligence agency, Bernard Squarcini, with having illegally obtained the journalist's mobile phone logs in 2010.
Another of the most high-profile cases has been the so-called "Karachi Affair," in which two close aides to Sarkozy have been charged by judges investigating alleged kickbacks on a Pakistani arms deal.
This case dates back to Sarkozy's time as budget minister, when he allegedly authorised the creation of a shell company used to channel kickbacks to then prime minister Edouard Balladur's unsuccessful 1995 presidential bid.
And, 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.
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.
Sarkozy has denounced that claim as "grotesque" and said he will sue French media website Mediapart over the reports.
Chirac was called before investigators less than two months after he left office in 2007, on charges of breach of trust and embezzlement between 1990 and 1995, when as mayor of Paris he employed ghost workers.
He was found guilty and given a suspended jail sentence in December, becoming the first post-war French head of state to be convicted of criminal wrongdoing.