Spying claims put pressureon Sarkozy
JUST days after claims that Socialist Party presidential candidate François Hollande’s journalist girlfriend was being spied on by secret police the head of France’s domestic intelligence agency was arrested and charged with spying on another journalist.
Bernard Squarcini, a friend of President Sarkozy and the director of the DCRI, is accused of violating the confidentiality of journalistic sources and illegally obtaining information. A judge will now investigate further and decide if the case should go to trial. He was the latest of Sarkozy’s inner circle to be arrested after a series of claims of abuses.
Sarkozy’s best man at his wedding to Carla Bruni and a witness were both arrested over bribery allegations in the so-called Karachi affair over the sale of submarines to Pakistan.
Squarcini has received support from Prime Minister François Fillon and Interior Minister Claude Guéant.
News of Squarcini’s charge came after L’Express news magazine published claims that Paris police intelligence officers had launched an illegal investigation into Valérie Trierweiler’s life and lifestyle.
It awoke unpleasant memories of smears in previous administrations, practices which Sarkozy promised to stop when elected. Mr Guéant said there was “no proof ” of a police inquiry and launched legal action against the paper.
For Hollande it was an “unacceptable intrusion” and he demanded to know if there was any such inquiry, adding:
“If confirmed, that speaks plenty about the way the Right is planning to run this campaign.” He saw it as “another aberration under Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidency”.
Trierweiler was “shocked” and “dumbfounded” and is speaking to her lawyer.
It was a baptism of fire for the political journalist who has given up her work with Paris Match and Direct 8 TV channel, where she presented a programme on the run-up to next year’s election.
She wrote on Twitter after Hollande’s primary victory that she needed time to fit into the new role, “time to understand and learn”. And, with the spy story still fresh, she added: “But I’ll learn fast.”
Mr Hollande – the self-proclaimed Mr Normal as opposed to Sarkozy’s blingbling lifestyle – beat challenger Martine Aubry to take the Socialist nomination but faces a double challenge over the next six months.
Ms Aubry’s reference to him as the “mild left” will surely be used with glee by Sarkozy’s UMP campaigners, as will his inexperience in top-level politics.
He has no background in business or in running a government department and the UMP has already said being president of the small Corrèze department, hardly prepares him for having his finger on the nuclear button or for hard negotiations on the Euro.
