Police search Sarkozy party HQ in L’Oreal investigation

UMP party chief Xavier Bertrand (pictured) says that police searched the party headquarters in Paris on Wednesday as part of their ongoing investigation into the alleged involvement of Labour Minister Eric Woerth in the L'Oreal scandal.

By François PICARD (video)
News Wires (text)

AFP - French police probing a party financing scandal linked to L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt have searched the headquarters of President Nicolas Sarkozy's majority UMP, the party said Thursday.

Police from the financial investigations squad searched the Paris headquarters on Wednesday afternoon, the party's leader Xavier Bertrand said, in the latest development of the months-long scandal.

Several judicial investigations are under way into affairs linked to Bettencourt's fortune, including allegations of tax evasion and illegal campaign funding that have implicated Labour Minister Eric Woerth.

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The party's director general Eric Cesari told AFP the police had come to look for "correspondance between Eric Woerth and Patrice de Maistre", the manager of Bettencourt's 17-billion-euro (22-billion-dollar) fortune.

Woerth was previously UMP treasurer and head fundraiser for Sarkozy's 2007 presidential campaign. He has been accused of a conflict of interest because his wife worked for Maistre, helping manage the billionairess's estate.

Woerth denies any wrongdoing but has been politically weakened and the long-running investigation has undermined his and Sarkozy's attempt to push through pensions reform.

Cesari said police had announced their visit and spent an hour a half at the headquarters checking archives, but did not take anything with them.

Police told AFP the search was ordered by a prosecutor in the western Paris suburb of Nanterre who is investigating various aspects of Bettencourt's affairs and allegations implicating Woerth.

The magazine Paris Match reported on its website that investigators were searching for a letter sent by Woerth to Sarkozy in March 2007 in which Woerth called for Maistre to receive France's top state honour, the Legion d'Honneur.