Sarkozy launches campaign of fear over affair rumours

President Nicolas Sarkozy has ordered a campaign of terror to punish those responsible for rumours which circulated last month on supposed tit-for-tat, extra-marital affairs by the French first couple.

Although the rumours have been discredited - and formally denied - the Elysee Palace is not prepared to let the matter rest.

Two journalists working for the internet edition of the Journal du Dimanche - which repeated the rumours in a website blog - have already been fired, apparently under pressure from the Elysee.

A senior communications aide to the President said he expected other people responsible to be fired and possibly sued.

Pierre Charon said: "We are going to war on these ignominious reports. We want to take things as far as we can to make sure this will never happen again. We want those who tried to spread fear to feel fear themselves."

The rumours that both the President and his wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, were having affairs began as unsubstantiated speculation on Twitter last month. The rumours rapidly spread to a series of French blogs and then to parts of the international press.

Charon told internet news site Rue 89 that the rumours might have been part of an "organised plot" by "financial interests".

The fact that the rumours were enthusiastically taken up by parts of the British press seems to have persuaded the Elysee that they originated in the "Anglo-Saxon" dominated financial markets - in other words that they were a conspiracy to start a Greek-style, financial speculation against French debt.

Such a claim is just as unsubstantiated, and baseless as the rumours themselves but is symptomatic of the paranoid and embattled mood now reigning in the Elysee Palace.

Sarkozy is reported to have ordered the police and intelligence services to try to track the reports to their original source.

The journalists' association at the Journal du Dimanche protested yesterday against what it called the "unprecedented bullying and inquisitorial" attitude of the Elysee.

The journalists pointed out that JDD's editor had already formally apologised and that the rumours had never been published in the newspaper itself.

There were reports last week that Sarkozy blamed the rumours on his estranged former aide and Justice Minister, Rachida Dati, now a member of the European Parliament.

The Elysee Palace has since distanced itself from these reports.

- INDEPENDENT