French police raid the home and offices of former president Nicolas Sarkozy
The former French president’s alleged prediction came as judicial insiders warned it was “inevitable” he would be called in for questioning over illegal campaign funding allegations.
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Fraud squad officers and an investigating magistrate searched the Paris home of Mr Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy on Tuesday morning, as well as the office he moved into since losing his re-election bid in May. Reports of a raid at the offices of a law firm where he is an associate were denied yesterday morning.
The Wall Street Journal confirm that about a dozen police searched offices Sarkozy has used since leaving the Elysée palace in mid-May, and the Paris apartment of his wife.
Magistrates are investigating claims that house staff of Liliane Bettencourt, heiress to the L’Oréal cosmetics empire and France’s richest woman, handed over brown envelopes stuffed with cash to Mr Sarkozy and his aides to finance his successful 2007 presidential campaign.
On holiday in Canada since Monday, Mr Sarkozy has made no public comment on the raids. But Le Parisien quoted him as telling friends in recent days: “I know they’ll come looking for me. Nothing will come of it all.”
He has previously dismissed suggestions he received illegal payments as an electoral “stink bomb”.
Manuel Valls, the new Socialist interior minister, said: “(Sarkozy) is answerable to the law like anyone else. Justice must shine a light (on this case).”
