Word: chirac
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...Many pundits are alleging that the timing - and questionable taste - of Giscard's book is driven by the fact that fellow former President Jacques Chirac will publish a memoir of his own political career next month. Enduring hatred between the two men stretches back to the mid-1970s; each has waged a campaign of electoral war and political brawling against the other ever since. The Princess and the President, some pundits say, is Giscard's newest attempt to steal the limelight from his nemesis...
...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-bearer in the 2007 elections to succeed conservative President Jacques Chirac. The court will examine whether de Villepin used what he eventually learned was a fraudulent list in the hope that it would scuttle Sarkozy's presidential bid. (See pictures of Nicolas Sarkozy...
...unshakable Chirac supporter and longtime Elysée chief of staff, de Villepin shared his mentor's hatred of Sarkozy, who in 1994 dropped nearly 20 years of filial devotion to Chirac to back an unexpected presidential run by a rival conservative politician. Chirac won that contest - and promptly sent Sarkozy into political exile until 2002, when law-and-order hard-liner Sarkozy was tapped for a key Interior Ministry post. But neither Chirac nor de Villepin ever forgave Sarkozy...
...with Sarkozy's presidential run surging, Chirac threw his weight behind de Villepin as the right's candidate to retain the Elysée, eventually appointing his Dauphin as Prime Minister to enhance his chances. The question now before the court in Paris is whether that passionate anti-Sarkozy drive went so far as using illicit dirty tricks. (See the top 10 political sex scandals...
...Villepin denies that he sought to use the list as a way to smear Sarkozy - despite the fact that an intelligence agent he'd asked to investigate the list determined it was a forgery. Notes taken at the time by that same intelligence official suggest that de Villepin and Chirac wanted to exploit the list to undermine Sarkozy. "At no point did I ask for any investigation on any political figures," de Villepin told the press after he was questioned by investigators last year. "And at no point did I participate in any political maneuver...