Judges finish questioning French PM

French prime minister Dominique de Villepin today wrapped up a gruelling 17-hour-long grilling by judges investigating a suspected smear campaign against presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy.

The so-called Clearstream affair centred on damaging, but false, allegations that Sarkozy had secret bank accounts.

The matter helped poison relations between Sarkozy and Villepin, unsettling the centre-right government in which they form an uneasy pairing, and has played into the race for the French presidency in 2007.

Key questions are what Villepin knew, and when, and whether he kept an investigation into the allegations going long after it became clear that Sarkozy, France’s interior minister, had been unjustly accused.

The questioning, which began yesterday morning, ended at 3am local time today.

“For my part, I was very pleased to be able to testify on this matter, of which I have for many months been a victim of slander and lies,” Villepin told reporters following what he called his “marathon testimony".

Judges questioned Villepin only as a witness. Other prominent centre-right UMP party politicians have been questioned as witnesses in the case, including Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie and former prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin.

Jean-Louis Gergorin, a former vice president of European defence giant EADS, and ex-EADS executive, Imad Lahoud, have been charged together with journalist Denis Robert, author of a book that implicates Villepin in the smear campaign.

Suspicions that Villepin was involved in the accusations – combined with his shelving of proposed labour reforms, which provoked violent protests last spring - appear to have dashed his hopes of running for president.

Without saying so outright, he has recently hinted that he does not expect to be a candidate in the April and May elections.

Sarkozy, on the other hand, widely seen as a victim of the affair, has emerged from it strengthened, leaving him the overwhelming favourite to win the presidential nomination for the centre-right UMP party, which he heads.

Endorsements yesterday by two leading UMP politicians – Raffarin and Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy – reinforced the Sarkozy campaign.

Sarkozy’s supporters have called for punishment if the investigation establishes that the apparent smear campaign was aimed at unsettling the Sarkozy’s presidential run.

“When low blows are used to sideline a political adversary, there must be sanctions,” Francois Fillon, Sarkozy’s political adviser, said in a radio interview. He said he believed that “people manipulated this affair” but added: “I have no proof.”