Bettencourt case: for Nicolas Sarkozy, silence is silver

Kept in prison, could Patrice de Maistre, key man but weak link in the Woerth-Bettencourt affair, reveal everything?

Nicolas Sarkozy can no longer content himself with brushing aside the suspicions surrounding the financing of his 2007 campaign. His silence is no longer enough to ensure his defence. On the eve of the first round of the presidential election, explanations of his relations with the Bettencourt family are essential. Because sooner or later, justice will ask him for the truth, but only after the lifting of his presidential immunity. At the height of the campaign, he cannot let business blur the debate and maintain the fantasy of a plot hatched by the coalition of a judge and the Socialist Party...

HARSH. The president-candidate owes these explanations because never since the beginning of his five-year term has an examining magistrate approached the Elysée so much. By placing Patrice de Maistre - Liliane Bettencourt's wealth manager - in pre-trial detention on March 22, Judge Gentil made his suspicions very clear. In his order, revealed last Sunday by the JDD, the magistrate also writes in black and white that he suspects de Maistre of having given envelopes of banknotes to Eric Woerth, then treasurer of the UMP, in order to finance Sarkozy's campaign (read page 3). Since the summoning of Jacques Chirac as a witness by Judge Eric Halphen in March 2001, never has a magistrate done such a harsh act against a President of the Republic. Prohibited from responding to justice, Nicolas Sarkozy cannot leave these accusations in abeyance.

Costs. Especially since for nearly two years, the Head of State and his entourage have seemed to do everything possible to ensure that no investigation is carried out. For months, the prosecutor Philippe Courroye, in Nanterre, struggled to prevent any independent investigation, informing the Elysée as closely as possible of the progress of a procedure under control. Bernard Squarcini, head of the DCRI, also put the greatest zeal into spying on journalists to ensure that they would not go too far in their revelations. For this, the boss of the secret services like the Nanterre prosecutor are now accountable to justice. In the end, we had to wait for the change of scenery of the Bettencourt case in Bordeaux and the appointment of an independent judge, Jean-Michel Gentil, for justice to finally pass. In the expected explanations, the theory of manipulation will find no place. François Fillon understood this at his expense on Thursday, on France Inter, apologizing immediately after declaring that the Bettencourt affair arose because “Holland is in difficulty in the polls”.

BOMB. Questioned by a journalist from Médiapart on February 16 in Annecy, during his first campaign trip and a week after the indictment of Eric Woerth, Nicolas Sarkozy replied: "I don't want to talk about that. We are in a democracy, and we have the right not to answer questions. You have the right to ask them, I have the right not to answer them.

Now, while justice confirmed on Friday the continued detention of Patrice de Maistre and reinforced the suspicion of hidden financing of his 2007 campaign, and while a legal bomb threatens to explode, the president-candidate does not can no longer be silent.

 

By Eric Decouty