THE ROW over allegations that the Élysée Palace ordered spies to trace the source of a story in Le Mondeintensified yesterday as a public prosecutor asked the intelligence services to explain their involvement.
Jean-Claude Marin, a Paris prosecutor, revealed his request a day after Le Mondeaccused President Nicolas Sarkozy's office of deploying the domestic intelligence service to track down the source of a story on the so-called Bettencourt-Woerth affair. The paper alleges this was in breach of a law that protects journalists' sources.
The presidency has strongly denied the claims, but the paper yesterday claimed two senior officials had given contradictory explanations of the episode.
The head of national police, Frédéric Péchenard, said the intervention of intelligence officers to find the source of the story was justified by their mission to “protect the institutions” of state. He confirmed a senior civil servant was identified as the source. Le Monde says the individual, a high-ranking official in the justice ministry, has been removed from his post and sent to work on a project in French Guiana, in South America.
In order to track down the source, officers secured the telephone records of at least one individual. Mr Péchenard said this was done after consultation with a “qualified person” at the CNCIS commission, which is responsible for advising the government on telephone interceptions.
Hours later Rémi Récio, the head of the CNCIS, appeared to deny this. “This type of request is not within the scope of what the CNCIS authorises,” he said.
The story was part of Le Monde's coverage of an inheritance dispute involving France's richest woman, L'Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, which has led to a series of allegations of illegal party financing. Le Mondesays the Élysée Palace was "irritated" by the report, which concerned remarks made to police by Ms Bettencourt's financial adviser about the labour minister Éric Woerth.