FRENCH INTERIOR minister Claude Guéant has denied that the secret service was ordered to prepare a file on the partner of François Hollande, the frontrunner to win the Socialist Party nomination for the presidency.
The news magazine L'Expressset off a political dispute when it reported that a police intelligence unit had run checks on Mr Hollande's partner, the journalist Valérie Trierweiler. Citing anonymous police sources, the magazine said the police had been ordered early this year to compile a dossier on her past and acquaintances.
It did not specify who might have issued the alleged order, but Mr Hollande was known to be considering a run for the socialist nomination at the time.
Mr Hollande, who is far ahead of President Nicolas Sarkozy in opinion polls, demanded a clarification, adding: “If this were confirmed it would speak a great deal about the right’s plans for the election campaign.”
Reacting to the story after yesterday's cabinet meeting, Mr Guéant denied the claims and said he would take legal action against L'Express. "Enough of this insinuation," he said. "When you've got accusations to make you lay them out, you produce evidence and you take the matter up with the relevant body or judicial authority."
Mr Hollande has been with Ms Trierweiler, who works for a private TV channel, since he split up with fellow socialist Ségolène Royal, the mother of his four children and one of his rivals in the party primary contest this month.
Mr Hollande said that if an inquiry were to take place into the allegations, he hoped it would aim "not to find out [the magazine's] source but to find out what happened". This was a reference to an admission from Mr Guéant last month that the domestic intelligence service obtained the phone records of a Le Mondejournalist in order to trace the source of an embarrassing leak for Mr Sarkozy's party.
Tensions have been simmering for weeks as Mr Sarkozy and his conservative camp accuse the left of trying to exploit recent developments in a number of anti-corruption investigations in which allies of Mr Sarkozy have been placed under judicial investigation.
The tone intensified last week when Mr Sarkozy’s UMP party lost control of the senate for the first time in half a century.
With just days to go to the first round of voting in the socialist primary on Sunday, the six candidates went into their third television debate last night with Mr Hollande enjoying a commanding lead in the polls.
He has a 14-point lead over his nearest rival, former party leader Martine Aubry, the latest surveys suggest, with Ms Royal, who lost to Mr Sarkozy in 2007, in a distant third place.
The three other candidates are Arnaud Montebourg and Manuel Valls, who represent the left- and right-wing strands of the party, and Jean-Michel Baylet of the small centrist Parti Radical de Gauche.
The frontrunner was doing little yesterday to dispel the impression that he feels he is already over the line. Speaking to students in Grenoble, he described the primary as his “first stage” and said it would be followed by “a much more serious stage, against the right and the far-right . . . I’m in the semi-final, and I’ll be back for the final,” he added.