France: Ex-PM Dominique de Villepin held in fraud inquiry

French former Prime Minister and one-time presidential hopeful Dominique de Villepin was taken into police custody yesterday for questioning by magistrates investigating a suspected financial scam involving a luxury hotel network.

Mr Villepin, pictured, who served under former President Jacques Chirac as his chief-of-staff, and ultimately prime minister from 2005 and 2007, was questioned about his links with a man suspected of financial fraud, a police spokesman said.

The 58-year-old, best known internationally for announcing Chirac's refusal to join a war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq in an impassioned speech at the United Nations in 2003, denied any wrongdoing when the fraud affair surfaced last December.

Magistrates are investigating whether a friend and political backer of Mr Villepin siphoned off large sums of money when he was in charge of an association of luxury hotels called Relais & Chateaux.

Mr Villepin was dragged into the probe after police phone taps exposed links between him and the man at the centre of the probe, Regis Bulot, president of the Relais & Chateaux network until 2006.

The affair surfaced when Villepin was on the verge of entering the May presidential election race, a move he ultimately abandoned.