13-09-10, 11:21 PM
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Le Monde accuses Nicolas Sarkozy of ordering 'spying' on reporters
*cough*Clearstream*cough*
Le Monde accuses Nicolas Sarkozy of ordering 'spying' on reporters | Media | The Guardian
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Quote:
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France's most respected newspaper has accused Nicolas Sarkozy of ordering the country's counterintelligence services to spy on one of its reporters.
The newspaper said it was suing for breach of confidentiality of sources linked to one of the most embarrassing scandals to hit Sarkozy's government.
It claimed the DCRI, France's domestic intelligence agency – the equivalent of MI5 - had broken the law by investigating the source of leaks related to claims of tax evasion and illegal party funding by the L'Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt.
"The law is absolutely clear. 'The confidentiality of journalists' sources is protected in the exercise of their mission to inform the public'," wrote Le Monde in its editorial.
It pointed out that this clause strengthening a law dating back to 1881 had been introduced by Sarkozy only in January this year.
Since July, the president and his government have faced a string of embarrassing allegations about donations by Bettencourt, France's richest woman, to Sarkozy's ruling right-of-centre UMP party.
In July, Le Monde published an article including extracts from a police interview of a witness in the affair that had thrown suspicion on the government minister Eric Woerth, who is also the UMP's chief fundraiser.
Woerth was accused of a conflict of interests as his wife Florence worked for Bettencourt. He was also alleged to have accepted party donations from the billionaire while she was hiding part of her fortune in Swiss bank accounts. Woerth has denied any wrongdoing and the allegations are currently being investigated The Le Monde interview, based on leaked police interviews with the heiress's financial adviser Patrice de Maistre in which he claimed Woerth had encouraged him to employ his wife, was said to have "particularly irritated the Elysée".
Accusations against labour minister Woerth came at a particularly crucial time for Sarkozy's administration as he is the driving force behind the president's controversial pension reforms.
Elysée is said to have ordered the DCRI to find the source of the leaks by obtaining details of telephone calls made by several people suspected of leaking the information to the newspaper.
It linked one of Le Monde's journalists to an advisor to the justice ministry who was subsequently demoted and sent to French Guyana.
Under the headline: 'The Woerth Affair: the Elysée has violated the law on the secrecy of journalists' sources', Sylvie Kauffmann, Le Monde's editor, cited police and intelligence sources for the newspaper's claims against the Elysée.
Le Monde announced it was suing "an unnamed person or persons" after Bernard Squarcini, director of the DCRI, told a French news magazine that his agency had looked into the source of the leaked police interviews in the Bettencourt affair.
The Elysée has said that it "totally denies" the allegations. In a statement to Agence France Presse it said "the presidency of the Republic confirms it did not give any instruction whatsoever to any agency whatsoever". It is not the first time the Elysée has been accused of misusing the intelligence service for political or personal reasons. Earlier this year Sarkozy ordered the country's spies to look into the sources of rumours that he and his wife, Carla Bruni, were having affairs.
The late socialist president François Mitterrand ran an entire "counter-terrorist" operation at the Elysée place during the 1980s. It tapped the phones and spied on dozens of people including journalists, celebrities and rival politicians.
Reporters Sans Frontières said it was extremely disturbed by Le Monde's claims that the secrecy of sources law had been violated by the Elysée.
It said that, if true, the allegations were a serious violation of press freedom and unacceptable in a democracy.
"We offer Le Monde all our support in its determination to establish whether the government violated the confidentiality of sources," it said in a statement.
"These allegations must be treated with the utmost seriousness. Reinforcing the protection of journalists' sources was one of Nicolas Sarkozy's campaign promises and a law was even passed in January."
The organisation called for a parliamentary commission to look into the claims.
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