Paris: President Nicolas Sarkozy's bid for re-election next year is under threat from allegations of sleaze as claims that he spied on journalists and took illegal donations from France's richest woman are followed by reports that he accepted cash from African despots.
The opposition socialists believe Sarkozy is vulnerable after an inquiry was launched into claims that French politics has been funded illegally by African dictators hoping for fav-ours from Paris.
Robert Bourgi, a lawyer known as "M Africa", says Jacques Chirac, the former president, and Dominique de Villepin, a former prime minister, received wads of cash from French-speaking west African countries.
When Bourgi turned up with a bag, he said, Chirac would sometimes ask: "Got something heavy for me?"
One of the suitcases Bourgi delivered was apparently so heavy that it put his back out. Bourgi says the payments ceased when he went to work for Sarkozy.
However, two former Chirac advisers insist that Bourgi carried on delivering African money that helped fund Sarkozy's presidential campaign in 2007. Michel de Bonnecorse says Bourgi "held out a begging bowl" to African dictators on Sarkozy's behalf. He said in an interview with the author of a book about corruption that Bourgi obtained funds in 2006 from Omar Bongo, the late president of Gabon, and Denis Sassou Nguesso, the president of Congo.
— The Times Newspapers Group Ltd, London 2011
