The below story appeared as Expatica's featured headline (scil., headline plus lede) for last Thursday then mysteriously disappeared from the week's headline listing and the news page altogether. Was the news page bursting with an abundance of headlines? No, all the news appeared above the scroll with the week's headline tally lighter than usual. And if they were in need of a trim, well, here's a headline that could've gone.

With so much else wrong with France, we were going to give this story a pass, but we are now intrigued why it was pulled from view. And like Manet's Olympia, what is hidden becomes far more interesting than what is displayed.

POWER AND LIES: A FRENCH POLITICAL THRILLER UNFOLDS

PARIS April 20, 2006 (AFP) - Two French judges are hunting for the identity of a mysterious informer who falsely accused a string of top politicians and businessmen — including Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy — of running secret bank accounts abroad.

The case goes back to 2004, when a set of documents and CD-Roms were sent anonymously to the judge Renaud Van Ruymbeke, naming Sarkozy and a string of others as holders of secret accounts at the Luxembourg-based bank Clearstream.

Here is the cheery public face of Clearstream Banking S.A. Aside from its involvement in the Franco-Taipei frigate hustle, Coldstream has an extensive -- and impressive -- history of taint, error, and scandal. Not the least of these is the incredible claim of its overstating assets under managemetn by $1.5 trillion.

The so-called 'Clearstream affair' has gathered momentum in recent weeks, with searches at the office of Defence Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie,** and the offices of senior French intelligence officials and industrialists. Several newspapers have suggested that Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin's offices could be next on the list.

Three businessmen — including Airbus number two Philippe Delmas — were also accused of receiving kickbacks from the 2.8-billion-dollar sale of French frigates to Taiwan in 1991, which Ruymbeke was investigating at the time.

In 1991 Taiwan purchased six Lafayette class frigates for $2.8 billion from Thomson-CSF, a French government arms company (now Thales Group, in which the French government maintains a 27.1% holding). Judicial investigations have since determined 33% of cost was spent on "a complex lobbying operation to secure the deal run by Thomson" with hundreds of millions skimmed off as commissions. In November 2003, Taipei filed a lawsuit claiming "illicit commission payments" violated the terms of the contract. In 2004 the Paris prosecutor's office determined that France, as the contract's guarantor, was at risk for some $600 million in fines or nearly 22% of cost.

The commissions were exposed following the 1993 murder of naval captain Yin Ching-Feng, a critic of the purchase. Eight deaths have been linked to the affair including Thierry Imbot, a French intelligence agent.

Imbot died in suspicious circumstances in 2000 having told his father - a former intelligence chief - that large amounts of money had been spent on commissions.

It is alleged that conspicuous French persons were among the commissioned. With that much money and God-only-knows-how-many French facilitators, well, really, where's the surprise?

Taiwan courts have sentenced 13 military officers and 15 arms dealers for bribery and leaking military secrets. But the square wheels of French justice turn more slowly.

The investigation had run into serious difficulties because of decisions by successive French governments to withhold documents on grounds of official secrecy.

Which brings us back round to our story.

A brief inquiry revealed the documents to be faked, and a defamation lawsuit was opened following legal action by Delmas and another industrialist.

Sarkozy — the centre-right favourite for next year's presidential election — suspects an attempt to discredit him, carried out with possible support from political rivals in his own camp, Villepin chief among them. Determined to pin down those responsible for the smear, Sarkozy became a civil plaintiff in the lawsuit in January this year, in order to gain access to the case files.

But the complex affair has also poisoned the already hostile relations between Sarkozy and Villepin, who as interior minister at the time ordered the DST French intelligence agency to look into the claims. Sarkozy's supporters have accused the prime minister of keeping the DST's findings — which confirmed that the charges were bogus — under wraps.

Adding to the tension, the DST also suggested that EADS vice-chairman Jean-Louis Gergorin — an ally of the prime minister — could be the mysterious informer, although the executive denies all involvement. Investigators searched Gergorin's Paris home and EADS offices early this month.

Meanwhile, Alliot-Marie said following Wednesday's cabinet meeting that the search of her office — and that of her former intelligence chief General Philippe Rondot — was "a mystery".

In a final twist, however, the satirical French weekly Le Canard Enchaîné suggested in its latest issue that the searches could in fact be linked to a shadowy affair implicating President Jacques Chirac.

During the search of Rondot's office, the paper said, the judges seized a folder belonging to a French magistrate who was accused by the presidency in 2001 of investigating claims that Chirac owned secret bank accounts in Japan.

Quite the story.

* Corbeau = 1. A crow. 2. Auteur de lettres ou de coups de téléphones anonymes. An anonymous delator.
** The dimmest bulb in the dark Chirac marquee™.

PFFT (What is this?): Cloak and Domino/ique 2 | Circulez, il n'y a rien à voir 4 | Rayonnement français 0