Word: clearstream
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...case is known as "Clearstream" - a reference to a Luxembourg bank in which a number of top French politicians and business figures purportedly held accounts containing illegal kickback money from arms contracts. Those claims turned out to be false - as was the forged list of names of 89 Clearstream account holders that was sent to a French investigating judge in 2004 by an anonymous whistle-blower. Among those cited were then Finance Minister Sarkozy, who at the time was locked in a fierce battle with his boss, Prime Minister de Villepin, over who would run as the right's standard...
...former Prime Minister is accused of "complicity in false accusation, complicity in using forgeries, receipt of stolen property and breach of trust" in complaints filed by 39 plaintiffs, first among them Sarkozy. Three other defendants join de Villepin on trial for their roles in producing, detaining and disseminating the Clearstream list...
Legal experts and commentators say the evidence against de Villepin is partial at best - and that a conviction will be difficult. Sarkozy, who will be represented by his lawyer in court because of constitutional restraints, has publicly said he wants to see the people responsible for Clearstream "hanging from a butcher's hook." That's one reason he became a civil party to the case. Another may well be his belief that a guilty verdict for de Villepin could be the only way to rid himself of the one conservative rival who has ceaselessly criticized his record as President...
...France (GDF) by slashing the French state's 80% share in GDF. "Even the ump deputies are now acting like the opposition," says political scientist Dominique Reynié of Sciences Po. Adding to the turbulence, last week Villepin sued three authors for libel over claims linked to the murky Clearstream affair, then let his frustration boil over in the face of charges that he was too eager to protect embattled EADS co-ceo Noël Forgeard in the face of expensive Airbus production delays and an investigation into the propriety of stock sales. When Socialist leader Fran...