PARIS : France has opened a judicial investigation into allegations that former President Nicolas Sarkozy's 2007 election bid won illicit funds from late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, the public prosecutor's office said on Friday.The inquiry adds to the legal issues plaguing Sarkozy, who some see ...

PARIS (AFP) - Police raided the Paris home of an ex-advisor to Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday as part of a probe into whether the former French president misused public funds to pay for opinion polls while in office. Since losing to Socialist Francois Hollande in the presidential election in May, ...

BORDEAUX  - Ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy has told judges he received no money from France’s richest woman, Liliane Bettencourt, amid allegations that his 2007 election campaign was illegally financed, a newspaper said. “I have known the Bettencourts for 28 years and I am 57. They ...

BORDEAUX  - Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has escaped indictment but will continue to be investigated over allegations that his 2007 election campaign was financed with funds secured illegally from the country’s richest woman. After more than 12 hours of interrogation, a panel ...

PARIS - An aide of French former president Nicolas Sarkozy was on Monday charged in an illegal political funding scandal known as the “Karachi Affair”, a complex probe into alleged kickbacks on arms deals.Nicolas Bazire, the current number two of luxury group LVMH, was heard by judges ...

PARIS : A former French official has disclosed that former president Nicolas Sarkozy had not taken any commission in the controversial Agosta submarine contract rather the latter was against this transaction, reported a private TV channel. According to a French newspaper, the French ministry of ...

Agnès Poirier On hearing the news that the former French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s offices and Carla Bruni’s home had been raided by a dozen police officers at dawn on Tuesday, even the most erudite of political analysts could have been forgiven for asking: “and for what ...

PARIS  - Barely an hour after former French president Nicolas Sarkozy left office on Tuesday, one of his former senior advisers revealed that he has been charged with money laundering.Several of Sarkozy’s allies have been implicated in a string of graft investigations and he could face ...

French voters headed to the polls on Sunday for the first round of a presidential election that is expected to mark the end of Nicolas Sarkozy's turbulent term in office.Predictions of a high abstention rate and strong protest vote left the outcome uncertain, but recent opinion polls pointed to the ...

PARIS  - Nicolas Sarkozy’s campaign appeared to lose steam Wednesday, four days ahead of the first round of France’s presidential election that pollsters increasingly say he will lose to his Socialist rival.Abandoned by some allies and rounded on by some traditionally ...

PARIS  - French President Nicolas Sarkozy told a Sunday newspaper he is serious about pushing for more trade protectionism in Europe and tighter external border controls, hinting he could take a stand as tough as Charles de Gaulle’s 1965 “empty chair” policy.The conservative ...

PARIS  - France's President Nicolas Sarkozy prepared to finally unveil a detailed manifesto Thursday with just 17 days to go before the first-round of what promises to be a close-fought presidential election.Thousands of copies of his programme had been printed in slim booklets, as the ...

PARIS - Opponents of France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy accused him Wednesday of stage-managing a high-profile round-up of suspected Islamists in order to boost his re-election hopes.Police carried out their second wave of arrests of suspected extremists in a week, just as Socialist ...

PARIS  - French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Tuesday vehemently denied new accusations of illegal party financing that are threatening to overshadow his re-election campaign.An investigation into alleged illegal financing of Sarkozy's 2007 campaign by L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt is ...

PARIS  - France will bar radical Muslim preachers from entering the country to participate in an Islamic conference next month as part of a crackdown after shootings by an al Qaeda-inspired gunman, President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Monday.Sarkozy, who has announced plans to punish those ...

PARIS - President Nicolas Sarkozy threatened in a key election rally Sunday to pull France out of Europe’s 26-nation visa free zone unless the EU does more to keep out illegal immigrants.Sarkozy, who this week said France had too many foreigners, made the threat at a mass meeting which he ...

MARSEILLE - President Nicolas Sarkozy attempted to rally his troops Sunday with a call for the French people to stand with him against a defeatist elite and to defend the traditional values of a strong France.Trailing in the polls with barely nine weeks to go before he stands for re-election, the ...

PARIS  - President Nicolas Sarkozy will immediately submit a new draft of a law punishing denial of the Armenian genocide if France’s top judicial body rejects it, two ministers told AFP Wednesday. “The president told us in cabinet that he would immediately submit a new draft if ...

ERIC PAPEIn the United States, sadly, the death of four soldiers in Afghanistan is the sort of routine event that barely makes the evening news. In France, on the other hand, which has seen far fewer casualties in over 11 years of fighting, the killing of four French military trainers and the ...

PARIS - French President Nicolas Sarkozy warned Friday that any foreign military intervention against Iran’s nuclear programme would trigger “war and chaos” across the Middle East and beyond.“Time is limited. France will do everything to avoid military intervention, but ...

PARIS (AFP) - President Nicolas Sarkozy knew about a shell company used to channel arms sales commissions in the 1990s, French media said Monday, amid a probe into alleged illegal party funding in France.The Liberation daily quoted testimony to a judge from a former senior civil servant that in ...

PARIS (AFP) - The wife of a former close aide of French President Nicolas Sarkozy repeated claims Saturday that her husband, charged in a damaging graft scandal, had returned from trips abroad with bags of cash. In media interviews Princess Helene of Yugoslavia, estranged wife of Thierry Gaubert, ...

PARIS (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy's popularity rating has edged up 1 percentage point but remains near record lows following the sexual assault charges against former Iinternational Monitoring Fund (IMF) chief Dominique Strass-Kahn, according to a poll. Strass-Kahn had been ...

French President Nicolas Sarkozy got it monumentally wrong in Libya and now it appears he has got it monumentally wrong in France. While France cavorts with international terrorists in Libya, now French citizens will have a dress code imposed upon them. Did the French obey local dress codes during ...

PARIS (Agencies) A full-blown state scandal, involving President Nicolas Sarkozy and other senior figures, threatened to explode over 'Karachigate, as a French judge on Thursday questioned former prime minister Dominique de Villepin about corruption allegations linked to the deaths of 11 French ...

MADRID (AFP) - President Nicolas Sarkozy threatened to pull France out of the euro currency group to force Germany to help Greece with its debt crisis, El Pais newspaper reported Friday, quoting Spains prime minister. Spain however denied the report. A government source described it as lacking in ...

TWENTY short people were apparently ordered to stand behind Nicolas Sarkozy so as to make him look taller while delivering a keynote televised speech, it emerged today. They were brought in after being 'vetted by aides of the French President who made sure none were more than his own height of 5ft ...

PARIS (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Monday that burqas, garments that cover women from head to toe and hide their faces, had no place in France as they were a sign of the subjugation of women. During a solemn speech to parliament on a wide range of issues, Sarkozy backed an ...

NICOLAS Sarkozy and Carla Bruni are hoping to turn the old home of fashion designer Yves St Laurent into a multi-million pound 'love nest. The French presidential couple have set their hearts on the property in an upmarket area of Paris. Once filled with priceless art treasures, the three-storey ...

TORONTO (Agencies) - Republican vice presidential candidate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin unwittingly took a prank call Saturday from a Canadian comedian posing as French President Nicolas Sarkozy and telling her she would make a good president someday. "Maybe in eight years," replies a laughing ...