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Europe
Villepin Trial Opens in France
2009-09-22
On the first day of his civil trial in the so-called Clearstream affair, former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin who is a man on Monday accused President Nicolas Sarkozy of pursuing him for political reasons.
Turnabout being fair play, and all that.
Mr. Villepin is accused of involvement in a smear campaign against Mr. Sarkozy and 38 other plaintiffs dating back to 2004, when Mr. Villepin and Mr. Sarkozy were ministers in President Jacques Chirac's government and jockeying to succeed him. The case centers on a leaked list, since determined to be fake, of people including Mr. Sarkozy said to hold secret bank accounts at Clearstream, a financial clearinghouse in Luxembourg. The accounts were supposedly linked to kickbacks related to the sale of French frigates to Taiwan.

"I am here because of the determination of one man, Nicolas Sarkozy," Mr. Villepin said before taking his place on the defendants' bench. "I will leave free and vindicated."
Prob'ly not exactly that, but no doubt you'll get the occasional weekend and Christmas holidays with your family if you're well-behaved.
Posted by:Steve White

#6  I guess he is the reason that "douche" is a french word.
Posted by: whitecollar redneck   2009-09-22 20:48  

#5  They don't say when he gets to read his poetry. That should settle things without need for further discussion. He is published, you know.

He actually made a very grandstanding and theatrical speech at the beginning of the trial, flanked by his daughter and wimman, was much commented here (politically targeted, expiatory lamb, Justice™ will prevail, etc, etc...), basically tried to bask in the same verbal glory that his UN iraq war got him.
But, after all, why not??? Can't blame him to fall back to his schtick.

This whole mess is just so sordid, it's not a complex, elaborate international intrigue, it's... a petty rivalry between two long-time insiders of the french Enlightened Elites, one shiraq retainer vs a former shiraq retainer who dared dfey his fallen Capo... all this in the contxt of a shady, endless squalid backstory of an HUGE arms deal kickback (billions of vanished money, and quite a few witnesses deaths).
"villepin" is such a windbag, can't see how he still is such a legend in his own mind, he may loathes "lowly politicians" (he's after all a member of the french Civil Servant Elite, those people come and go, he stays), but his record is one failure after an another, some being just hilarious, like the 1997 assembly dissolution & subsequent new elections (that were supposed to give shiraq all the Elan™ he needed and get him of the pro-balladur/shiraq failed rival majority, since "villepin" vision was of a surge of the french people toward the Leader... turned out to be a complete left tsunami that made shiraq a lame-duck president for the last ***5*** years of his 7 years mandate. Good work dude).

Ps : REAL name of "de villepin" is GALOUZEAU. His nobility title is just a title his family ***bought*** very recently (50's IIRC???).
Posted by: anonymous5089   2009-09-22 16:28  

#4  They don't say when he gets to read his poetry. That should settle things without need for further discussion. He is published, you know.
Posted by: trailing wife   2009-09-22 15:24  

#3  Villepin's problem was planting the fake list himself and not having a French Dan Rather do his bidding.
Posted by: ed   2009-09-22 06:44  

#2  The case centers on a leaked list, since determined to be fake, of people including Mr. Sarkozy said to hold secret bank accounts at Clearstream, a financial clearinghouse in Luxembourg.

fake. Hmmm.
Posted by: Jumbo Slinerong5015   2009-09-22 06:21  

#1  former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin on Monday accused President Nicolas Sarkozy of pursuing him for political reasons

Actually it's because Carla is jealous of your hair, Dominique.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2009-09-22 01:30  

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