Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin

PARIS (Reuters) - Former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin is positioning himself as a challenger to Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2012 presidential election, using a political trial to re-launch his career. While awaiting a verdict on the accusation that he tried to smear Sarkozy before the last election, Villepin has seized a shift in the public mood to attack the president and raise the prospect of an internal split in the French right. "I want to work toward an alternative force," he told French radio on Wednesday after a battle-cry speech on Tuesday. If the trial, during which Villepin counter-accused Sarkozy of wanting ... Read Full Story

French ex-prime minister Dominique de Villepin accused President Nicolas Sarkozy of hanging him on a "butcher's hook" Tuesday after prosecutors called for an 18-month suspended sentence against him. "Nicolas Sarkozy had promised to hang me on a butcher's hook (and) I see that the promise has been kept," Villepin said bitterly after prosecutors asked for the sentence to be combined with a 45,000-euro (70,000-dollar) fine. The 55-year-old is charged with conspiring in 2004 to discredit Sarkozy and derail his presidential bid at a time when the two men were jostling to succeed president Jacques Chirac. Prosecutors argued that while Villepin had not deliberately taken ... Read Full Story

The politically-explosive trial of former French prime minister Dominique de Villepin and four others accused of plotting to derail Nicolas Sarkozy's bid for the presidency ended on Friday. Judges will hand down a verdict on January 28 in the case, in which Villepin claims to be the victim of a personal vendetta by the French president. The 55-year-old diplomat is charged with conspiring in 2004 to discredit Sarkozy with falsified documents, while the pair were jostling to succeed president Jacques Chirac. Villepin accused Sarkozy of hanging him "from a butcher's hook" as prosecutors called this week for an 18-month suspended sentence against him -- ... Read Full Story

PARIS (Reuters) - The verdict in a trial pitting former French prime minister Dominique de Villepin against President Nicolas Sarkozy is due on January 28, the court said on Friday. Villepin, an aristocratic ex-diplomat and a bitter rival to Sarkozy when they were ministers in the government of former president Jacques Chirac, is accused of taking part in a failed plot to destroy Sarkozy's bid for power in 2007. The trial came to a close on Friday after weeks of courtroom drama that have badly tarnished France's political elite. Prosecutors have tried to show Villepin arranged for faked documents apparently implicating Sarkozy and dozens ... Read Full Story

A longtime French intelligence official contradicted former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin on Monday in much-awaited testimony central to a slander trial that has rocked the French political establishment. A court has been probing who was behind an alleged smear campaign to discredit President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2004, while he was still a government minister on the path to France's highest office. Sarkozy says the smear campaign was intended to thwart his bid to be elected president in 2007 — and filed suit saying he believed Villepin was "the primary instigator" behind it. Villepin, who was also a government minister at the time, has ... Read Full Story