PARIS, (Reuters) – Former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin was cleared yesterday of plotting to smear his old rival Nicolas Sarkozy, dealing a stinging blow to the president who never made a secret of their enmity.
In a political scandal unprecedented in recent French history, Villepin had been accused in the so-called “Clearstream case” of using faked documents to link Sarkozy to a corruption investigation as the two men angled to succeed the ageing former president Jacques Chirac.
The aristocratic Villepin always denied the charges and said repeatedly that he was a victim of a vendetta by Sarkozy, who won power in the 2007 election while Villepin, who had served with Sarkozy in Chirac’s government, battled the allegations.
