WEBVTT

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This film was made
at a specific point in time:

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during the ongoing "Sarkozy-Gaddafi" trial
at the special judicial court in Paris.

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Our role is not to establish anyone's guilt.
We are not judges.

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Only a court of law can examine
incriminating and exculpatory evidence

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and determine
whether a crime has been committed.

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All individuals mentioned in this film
are presumed innocent.

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The ambitious man has as many masters
as there are people useful to his fortune.

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It's October 20, 2011,
on the outskirts of Sirte,

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in Libya.

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These are the final images
of Colonel Gaddafi's life.

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The death of the dictator who ruled Libya
for 40 years

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marked the end of a war

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that plunged the country
into political chaos

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and a cycle of devastating violence
that continues to this day.

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The war was conducted under UN authority,

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but was promoted by
one country in particular, France,

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and the determination of one man,

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its president at the time,

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Nicolas Sarkozy.

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Even as the bombs were falling,

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two journalists
launched an extraordinary investigation.

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It lasted over ten years,

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and gradually revealed
both the extent of relations

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between Muammar Gaddafi
and Nicolas Sarkozy,

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and how different they were
from the official version.

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August 16, 2023 interview in
Le Figaro Magazine:

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"The French people can't even say
what I'm accused of.

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"No one can make sense of it."

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Sarkozy - Gaddafi:
the Scandal of All Scandals

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"Maybe some article gets written,
but that doesn't matter.

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"Why doesn't it matter?

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"Because then there's another article,

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"and then another one

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"that says the opposite,
and no one can make sense of it."

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A Mysterious Email

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During the first half of 2011,

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an email arrived at Mediapart,

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from an unknown source who wrote:

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"I have something
that might interest you

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"concerning someone
you're writing about."

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We didn't yet know
what that something was.

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The person we were writing about

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was what's known politely
in political and business circles

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as an intermediary.

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If you're being nice,
you might say a wheeler-dealer.

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Less nice, as the law sometimes is:

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an agent of corruption.

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That man was Ziad Takieddine.

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The email got our attention,

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but required
my colleague Karl Laske and I

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to travel to a foreign country

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to see what kind of documents
were being offered.

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And we found ourselves looking at
Ziad Takieddine's digital archives.

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Back in the Mediapart offices,
Fabrice and I

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started examining
the archives we'd obtained.

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It was a hard drive

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with several thousand
documents on it.

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It had his tax forms,
photographs of his holidays with politicians,

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and every deal he had handled
in the previous ten years.

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There were details about Libyan dossiers,
Syrian dossiers, Saudi dossiers.

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His real estate holdings were documented,

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since, as an intermediary,
he had properties just about everywhere,

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in London, France, the French Riviera.

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There was even his own appraisal
of his assets:

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97 million euros.

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To understand Ziad Takieddine's role
in the affair,

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you need to go quite far back in time.

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His name first appeared
in the French news

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in the context of a sensational
political-financial scandal:

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the so-called "Karachi Affair".

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In the mid-1990s,

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Ziad Takieddine, born into
the upper echelons of Lebanese society,

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acted as an intermediary
in a gigantic sale of French submarines

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to the Pakistani government.

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Ziad Takieddine
received colossal commissions,

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part of which returned to France

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during the presidential campaign
of Edouard Balladur,

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who, in 1995,

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had decided to run against
the designated right-wing candidate,

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Jacques Chirac.

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That same year, a young mayor

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who had just been appointed
budget minister,

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decided to join Balladur's camp

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and became the spokesman
for his campaign.

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A certain Nicolas Sarkozy.

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But the Balladur clan's hopes
were short-lived

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because Jacques Chirac won the election.

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Ziad Takieddine's name
remained in the background,

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but we know that Chirac interrupted
the commission networks

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because he realized that the money

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had been used for the Balladur campaign

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and that considerable fraud
had been committed

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around those arms contracts.
So he interrupted them.

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That was a story Mediapart
reported on a lot,

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and about
which we revealed a great deal.

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And we believed...

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how to put this...

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that Ziad Takieddine's corruption saga,

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as understood by the courts,

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was limited to that time period,

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from 1993 to 1995,

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and to his relations with countries like
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

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On May 8, 2002,

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an attack in Karachi, Pakistan,

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killed 14 employees of the naval dockyards,

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including 11 French engineers
working on the submarines.

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To this day, the courts continue to question

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whether the attack was retaliation for
the non-payment of certain commissions.

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Mr. President, I'm with the AFP.

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According to information reported yesterday,

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following a meeting between plaintiffs
in the Karachi bombing case

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and the investigating magistrates,

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there's talk of kickbacks
to fund Edouard Balladur's 1995 campaign.

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As budget minister,
were you aware of any such agreements?

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There's no point asking
a question like that from my right.

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Listen, that's ridiculous.

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Frankly, it's ridiculous.

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So Mr. Balladur accepted kickbacks
for his campaign

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that never got paid,
and then a bomb in Karachi?

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Let's respect the pain of the victims.

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Who could believe such a tall tale?

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If there's a robbery in Brussels today,
I was here!

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Undeniable.

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Mr. President?

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Sorry, I'm not laughing, because Karachi
is the pain of the families and all that stuff.

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But what am I supposed to say to that?

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From Karachi to Gaddafi

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After Jacques Chirac's victory,

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the whole Balladur clan
was sidelined from political life.

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Their crossing of the desert
lasted seven years.

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It only came to an end when
Jacques Chirac was re-elected in May 2002.

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Needing to close ranks on the right,

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Chirac's second term

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saw some Balladur
faithful return to favor.

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Among them was Nicolas Sarkozy,
who joined the government.

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Pardon me.

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Nicolas Sarkozy became
minister of the interior,

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and Ziad Takieddine,
who had a magnificent mansion in Paris,

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near the Place du Trocadéro,

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organized a sumptuous party

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to celebrate the return to power
of the Balladur loyalists,

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in particular Nicolas Sarkozy.

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In early 2011,

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when at Mediapart

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we gained access to Ziad Takieddine's
digital archives,

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it was like a digital Ali Baba's cave.

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It helped us understand
that Ziad Takieddine -

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who we thought was a man
of a clan and an era -

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meaning the presumed agent of corruption
selling arms for the Balladur government

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from 1993 to 1995 -

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was in fact a continuity,
a shadow element

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in a chapter in the history
of the French right

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that lasted for decades.

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In 2002, now France's top cop,

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Nicolas Sarkozy
was all over the media.

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Have you had enough
of all these punks?

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And very quickly showed
his true ambition.

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When you're shaving in the morning,
you can think beyond the Interior Ministry.

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Maybe about the presidential election?

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Not only while shaving.

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Nicolas Sarkozy needed
his own network to rise to power,

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and one might reasonably suspect

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that he needed
his own sources of funding.

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And that's how Ziad Takieddine showed up

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on the radar of the Sarkozy team.

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As we delved deeper into the documents

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that we came
to call the "Takieddine files",

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we saw a story starting to emerge

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about the political, diplomatic,
and economic history between two countries,

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France and Libya,

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then ruled by dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

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That story did not seem to correspond
to the official version,

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the one the public knew,

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of the relationship
between the two countries.

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All the more so when Nicolas Sarkozy,
then minister of the interior,

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decided to run for president

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and then became the French head of state
in 2007.

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Trips to Libya

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Takieddine called himself
the "door opener",

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so he tried to open doors.

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He'd say:
"I open the doors to a country,

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"which is why I should get paid."

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And so he "opened the door" to Libya.

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Since Gaddafi came to power in 1969,

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his Libya,

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which claimed to be
socialist and pan-Africanist,

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was more or less
openly at war with the West,

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particularly
the United States and France.

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In 1976, Muammar Gaddafi wrote his
universal revolutionary theory,

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The Green Book, advocating
power for the people

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with Islam was confined
to a purely religious role.

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Former French diplomat in Tripoli
Author of In the Heart of Gaddafi's Libya

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Libya was the first Arab country
to nationalize its oil reserves.

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It was one of Gaddafi's
first acts in 1969.

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He kicked out the multinationals.

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So he asserted his sovereignty
first by nationalizing oil and gas

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and then by closing
British and American military bases

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that had been there since 1943.

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That's a partial explanation

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for the persistent confrontation
with the imperialist powers,

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because Gaddafi defined himself
as an anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist.

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At least against what he saw
as Western imperialism.

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After the American bombing
of Tripoli in 1986,

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the isolated Libyan state

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pursued a policy
of deadly terrorist attacks

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which led to its banishment
from the international community.

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But in hopes of ending
the embargo against his country,

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at the turn of the millennium,

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the dictator declared
that he would renounce both terrorism

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and his nuclear weapons program.

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I would place the end
of the "state terrorism" era in 2001.

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September 11, 2001,
was a real turning point for Gaddafi.

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He realized that the world had changed,

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that the American response
would be merciless,

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and that he could be next on the list

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of terrorist states.

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From 2003, with UN sanctions lifted,

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Libya became the new El Dorado

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for industrialists

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from around the world.
Mainly Westerners, but not only.

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So there was a real craze

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for resuming trade relations

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in every sector,
including security and the military.

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And that's when Ziad Takieddine

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really came into the picture.

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He was the one who took the first steps

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in the Gaddafi-Sarkozy affair,
if I can call it that.

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He made the first connections

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and explored possibilities -
including, of course

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since that's what interested him most -

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for secret commissions and dark money.

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We uncovered trade
and financial documents

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that show a parallel diplomacy.

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Ziad Takieddine was an agent
of secret diplomacy

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to Libya.

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It wasn't philanthropy,

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he had a financial interest.

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So he undertook trade negotiations

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on a whole host of economic grounds,

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from the sale of espionage equipment

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to the sale of crude oil and more
with the Libyan dictatorship.

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In Takieddine's archives, we discovered

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that his first contact,

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and his main contact in Libya,

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was Abdullah Senussi.

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For 30 years,
Abdullah Senussi was involved

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in the darkest and most dangerous
side of the regime.

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He was the man who organized

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the terrorist attacks
carried out by Libya in the 1980s.

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One of the most deadly attacks
by the Libyan government

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took place on September 19, 1989,

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against a plane operated by
the French airline UTA.

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The flight from Brazzaville to Paris
exploded over the Ténéré desert,

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killing all 170 people on board.

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The investigation revealed
that the attack,

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ordered by Colonel Gaddafi's government,

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was planned by Abdullah Senussi.

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Abdullah Senussi
was Gaddafi's brother-in-law.

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He belonged to a very large tribe
in the south, the Magarha,

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which was allied with Gaddafi's tribe

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and is very influential
in southern Libya.

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He's really...

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the classic example
of someone who had both

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family and tribal legitimacy.

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He was the epitome of the henchman.

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He knew everything.

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He handled all the sordid affairs,

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and he was behind the terrorist attacks.

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He was a pillar of the regime.

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In 1999,

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Abdullah Senussi was sentenced
in France

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to life imprisonment

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for having masterminded the attack
on the UTA airlines DC-10.

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An international arrest warrant
was issued for him.

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It's dizzying that Takieddine

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was in contact with Abdullah Senussi

00:18:21.080 --> 00:18:26.120
because it meant he was in contact
with the most dangerous man in Libya,

00:18:26.320 --> 00:18:27.800
a man convicted by France.

00:18:28.120 --> 00:18:32.040
He was absolutely
not to be associated with,

00:18:32.240 --> 00:18:34.600
by any political leader.

00:18:34.760 --> 00:18:37.920
But he would be associated with,

00:18:38.080 --> 00:18:42.680
indirectly at first, by Claude Guéant
and by Nicolas Sarkozy's team.

00:18:45.840 --> 00:18:50.040
Claude Guéant, a former prefect
and previous head of the French police,

00:18:50.240 --> 00:18:53.760
was chosen by Nicolas Sarkozy
as his chief of staff

00:18:53.920 --> 00:18:57.240
when he became
interior minister in 2002.

00:18:57.400 --> 00:19:02.280
Guéant, a man as level-headed and discreet
as Sarkozy is impulsive and talkative,

00:19:02.440 --> 00:19:06.200
became the conductor
of the Sarkozy machine.

00:19:06.440 --> 00:19:09.040
They would work together
for nearly two decades.

00:19:10.840 --> 00:19:14.120
We each have a specific role,

00:19:14.320 --> 00:19:16.320
but we're used to working together.

00:19:16.480 --> 00:19:22.240
No one takes offense if one has ideas
about the other's sphere.

00:19:22.560 --> 00:19:25.320
It was Ziad Takedienne who organized

00:19:25.480 --> 00:19:30.400
a visit by Claude Guéant, chief of staff
to Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy,

00:19:30.560 --> 00:19:33.520
in late September 2005.

00:19:33.680 --> 00:19:38.880
It was a preparatory visit
during which Claude Guéant

00:19:39.040 --> 00:19:40.960
worked with the Libyan authorities

00:19:41.120 --> 00:19:44.200
to prepare Nicolas Sarkozy's
visit the following week

00:19:44.360 --> 00:19:46.200
to Tripoli, the Libyan capital,

00:19:46.360 --> 00:19:49.720
to meet the leader, Colonel Gaddafi,

00:19:49.880 --> 00:19:53.240
who'd been dictator of the country
since the late 1960s.

00:19:53.400 --> 00:19:57.560
That preparatory visit by Claude Guéant
was very important

00:19:57.720 --> 00:20:00.000
because in his notes,

00:20:00.200 --> 00:20:05.600
Ziad Takieddine wrote that
it had to be secret,

00:20:05.760 --> 00:20:10.560
that neither the Foreign Affairs Ministry,

00:20:10.720 --> 00:20:15.840
nor Jacques Chirac, nor Dominique de Villepin
could know anything about it.

00:20:16.040 --> 00:20:19.480
The note indicates
the safeguards that were taken.

00:20:19.640 --> 00:20:24.200
Guéant was warned that it was essential
for the visit to remain secret,

00:20:24.360 --> 00:20:30.080
and the note also states:
"It'll be easier to talk about the other subject."

00:20:33.440 --> 00:20:38.000
That other question was very likely
the financing of Sarkozy's campaign.

00:20:39.920 --> 00:20:43.040
Claude Guéant, the chief of staff
of the interior minister,

00:20:43.440 --> 00:20:47.280
and therefore of the French police
and domestic intelligence services,

00:20:47.600 --> 00:20:51.080
met in secret,
in Tripoli in late September 2005,

00:20:51.280 --> 00:20:53.280
the terrorist Abdullah Senussi.

00:20:53.440 --> 00:20:56.840
It was a secret, behind the back
of the French diplomatic corps.

00:20:57.320 --> 00:21:01.120
The French ambassador and diplomats
in Tripoli were unaware of it.

00:21:01.320 --> 00:21:03.280
He met him without a bodyguard,

00:21:03.440 --> 00:21:07.120
though with one other man,
Ziad Takieddine,

00:21:07.320 --> 00:21:12.520
who served as an interpreter between
Abdullah Senussi and Claude Guéant.

00:21:16.560 --> 00:21:20.560
One week after his chief of staff's
preparatory visit,

00:21:21.000 --> 00:21:23.960
Nicolas Sarkozy went to Tripoli.

00:21:26.240 --> 00:21:28.560
It was a whirlwind one-day trip.

00:21:28.720 --> 00:21:31.200
Thank you for hosting us during Ramadan.

00:21:31.960 --> 00:21:36.360
Officially, the interior minister -
who has no diplomatic mandate -

00:21:36.520 --> 00:21:40.960
had come to discuss issues
related to migratory flows

00:21:41.120 --> 00:21:42.680
and terrorism.

00:21:43.240 --> 00:21:47.920
But officials present were surprised by
an unusual and lengthy tête-à-tête

00:21:48.080 --> 00:21:50.600
between the two men,

00:21:50.760 --> 00:21:54.320
off camera,
and with only their interpreter present.

00:21:55.520 --> 00:22:00.000
In fact, it was the beginning
of a Faustian pact

00:22:00.200 --> 00:22:04.240
between Nicolas Sarkozy
and Muammar Gaddafi.

00:22:04.920 --> 00:22:09.280
Gaddafi was aware of Sarkozy's ambition

00:22:09.440 --> 00:22:11.880
to become president of France

00:22:12.040 --> 00:22:15.920
because Ziad Takieddine
had told him about it,

00:22:16.080 --> 00:22:19.440
as the notes in the Takieddine files show.

00:22:19.600 --> 00:22:25.480
And he offered to help Nicolas Sarkozy
win power in France.

00:22:26.840 --> 00:22:32.840
It was a traditional practice
in the Gaddafi system

00:22:33.000 --> 00:22:34.800
to compensate your guests,

00:22:34.960 --> 00:22:39.360
to compensate armed groups
or leaders you want to support,

00:22:39.520 --> 00:22:42.920
and perhaps candidates for positions

00:22:43.080 --> 00:22:45.240
or elected office in foreign countries.

00:22:45.400 --> 00:22:50.920
So it was a common practice
in the Gaddafi system.

00:22:52.400 --> 00:22:56.880
Gaddafi saw Nicolas
Sarkozy as a new player.

00:22:57.040 --> 00:23:00.320
I think he rather liked him,

00:23:00.760 --> 00:23:06.120
so he wanted to do the right thing,
to restart the relationship

00:23:06.560 --> 00:23:08.200
with a new president.

00:23:09.600 --> 00:23:10.840
On that day,

00:23:11.000 --> 00:23:14.200
Muammar Gaddafi asked Nicolas Sarkozy

00:23:14.360 --> 00:23:16.240
for a gesture from France

00:23:16.400 --> 00:23:19.920
to improve Abdullah Senussi's
legal situation.

00:23:21.120 --> 00:23:24.000
Muammar Gaddafi asked Nicolas Sarkozy

00:23:24.200 --> 00:23:26.640
to find a legal solution,

00:23:27.200 --> 00:23:32.800
maybe even to get the arrest warrant
against Abdullah Senussi lifted.

00:23:33.800 --> 00:23:37.960
Sarkozy knew that Senussi's situation

00:23:38.120 --> 00:23:40.560
wasn't just a personal issue
for Senussi.

00:23:40.720 --> 00:23:43.480
It was a state issue for Libya.

00:23:45.760 --> 00:23:50.400
Gaddafi's regime was personal,
but he was also a "weak dictator",

00:23:50.560 --> 00:23:53.600
meaning he was dependent on networks.

00:23:53.760 --> 00:23:57.280
He controlled the tribes,
but he was also controlled by the tribes.

00:23:57.680 --> 00:24:00.640
And by his family.
There were tensions within the clan.

00:24:00.800 --> 00:24:03.720
So he was torn
by those different interests.

00:24:03.880 --> 00:24:08.080
And Abdullah Senussi
could talk to everyone in the clan.

00:24:09.680 --> 00:24:11.920
So it was particularly important

00:24:12.600 --> 00:24:15.080
with regard to honor, to image,

00:24:15.280 --> 00:24:18.560
and for internal balance
within the regime,

00:24:19.200 --> 00:24:23.360
that Gaddafi obtain a kind of amnesty

00:24:23.720 --> 00:24:26.320
for such an eminent
figure in the regime.

00:24:34.520 --> 00:24:35.920
We discovered that,

00:24:36.080 --> 00:24:38.120
only one and a half months

00:24:38.320 --> 00:24:42.280
after Nicolas Sarkozy's trip to Libya,

00:24:42.440 --> 00:24:45.560
his personal attorney and friend,

00:24:45.720 --> 00:24:48.480
the famous Paris lawyer Thierry Herzog,

00:24:49.120 --> 00:24:51.200
travelled to Libya.

00:24:51.360 --> 00:24:54.240
In late November 2005,

00:24:54.400 --> 00:24:58.200
he met with Abdullah Senussi's
criminal defense team.

00:24:58.760 --> 00:25:01.600
The discussion was about ways

00:25:01.760 --> 00:25:04.560
the arrest warrant
could be gotten rid of.

00:25:05.320 --> 00:25:09.720
We know this through considerable
material evidence,

00:25:10.120 --> 00:25:14.040
notably a report of the meeting in Libya

00:25:14.240 --> 00:25:16.000
between Senussi's men

00:25:16.200 --> 00:25:19.080
and Nicolas Sarkozy's lawyer,

00:25:19.280 --> 00:25:23.520
who would also become
Abdullah Senussi's lawyer for a time.

00:25:25.200 --> 00:25:29.400
On December 22, 2005, precisely,

00:25:30.400 --> 00:25:33.880
a close friend of Sarkozy,
Brice Hortefeux,

00:25:34.040 --> 00:25:37.000
then French minister
for local authorities,

00:25:37.440 --> 00:25:39.320
went in turn

00:25:39.880 --> 00:25:42.360
to Tripoli, the capital of Libya.

00:25:42.920 --> 00:25:45.000
Known as the most
faithful of the faithful,

00:25:45.200 --> 00:25:48.880
Brice Hortefeux was Nicolas Sarkozy's
longest-serving lieutenant.

00:25:49.240 --> 00:25:53.240
His loyalty was rewarded
with an appointment, in June 2005,

00:25:53.400 --> 00:25:56.600
as minister delegate
for local authorities

00:25:56.760 --> 00:26:00.120
under the authority of
Nicolas Sarkozy.

00:26:00.760 --> 00:26:04.680
Like Claude Guéant three months earlier,

00:26:04.840 --> 00:26:09.360
Brice Hortefeux met secretly
with Abdullah Senussi in Tripoli,

00:26:09.520 --> 00:26:11.200
in exactly the same circumstances:

00:26:11.560 --> 00:26:12.880
without diplomats present,

00:26:13.040 --> 00:26:15.040
without informing the embassy,

00:26:15.240 --> 00:26:16.400
without a bodyguard,

00:26:16.560 --> 00:26:18.040
without a translator,

00:26:18.240 --> 00:26:20.400
but always with the same man,

00:26:20.560 --> 00:26:22.040
the wheeler-dealer intermediary

00:26:22.240 --> 00:26:24.720
and alleged agent of corruption,

00:26:24.880 --> 00:26:26.080
Ziad Takieddine.

00:26:26.280 --> 00:26:29.360
And that day, according
to two of the three people present,

00:26:29.520 --> 00:26:32.800
Ziad Takieddine and Abdullah Senussi,

00:26:32.960 --> 00:26:37.760
this time the discussion was about
financing from Gaddafi's Libya

00:26:37.920 --> 00:26:40.240
to Sarkozy's team

00:26:40.400 --> 00:26:43.240
for the 2007 presidential election.

00:26:45.120 --> 00:26:48.480
Guéant: "I had no specific knowledge
of Abdullah Senussi's situation

00:26:48.640 --> 00:26:51.040
"and didn't know
I was going to meet him."

00:26:52.360 --> 00:26:55.360
Hortefeux: “I didn't know
the details of his conviction

00:26:55.520 --> 00:26:58.320
"and was totally unaware of
the international arrest warrant.”

00:26:59.240 --> 00:27:02.240
Asked about his meeting
with Senussi's representatives,

00:27:02.400 --> 00:27:05.320
Thierry Herzog did not reply,
claiming “attorney-client privilege”.

00:27:07.560 --> 00:27:09.960
Hortefeux and Guéant
claim “traps” were set for them,

00:27:10.120 --> 00:27:12.280
one each, three months apart.

00:27:12.720 --> 00:27:15.560
Nicolas! Nicolas!

00:27:16.320 --> 00:27:17.520
In early 2007,

00:27:17.680 --> 00:27:22.600
Nicolas Sarkozy, who had become leader
of the UMP party two years earlier,

00:27:22.760 --> 00:27:25.720
launched his presidential campaign.

00:27:26.640 --> 00:27:28.360
Breaking with tradition,

00:27:28.520 --> 00:27:32.560
Nicolas Sarkozy was thinking big,
and ran an American-style campaign.

00:27:33.320 --> 00:27:36.120
It was a time of virtuous declarations.

00:27:36.760 --> 00:27:39.200
A democracy beyond reproach
is a president

00:27:39.360 --> 00:27:41.960
who says beforehand all he plans to do,

00:27:42.120 --> 00:27:45.920
and, above all, does afterwards
everything he said he'd do before.

00:27:46.080 --> 00:27:49.360
That is democracy beyond reproach.

00:27:50.920 --> 00:27:53.240
I want France to defend human rights.

00:27:53.920 --> 00:27:56.240
I believe it deep down.

00:27:56.400 --> 00:28:00.960
I don't want and don't believe in
what's known as realpolitik,

00:28:01.200 --> 00:28:04.840
which leads you to abandon your values
without winning a single contract.

00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:06.560
I won't to be an accomplice

00:28:06.720 --> 00:28:09.280
to any dictatorship anywhere.

00:28:12.560 --> 00:28:14.240
With such powerful statements,

00:28:14.720 --> 00:28:16.440
on May 6, 2007,

00:28:16.600 --> 00:28:20.880
Nicolas Sarkozy was elected to be
the sixth president of the Fifth Republic.

00:28:21.960 --> 00:28:26.120
Across the Mediterranean,
the congratulations were warm,

00:28:26.360 --> 00:28:29.000
full of hope and promise.

00:28:31.240 --> 00:28:36.800
Transcript of a phone call
12 days after Nicolas Sarkozy was elected

00:28:36.960 --> 00:28:38.600
Gaddafi: Hello, Mr. President.

00:28:38.760 --> 00:28:42.400
Congratulations again on winning
the confidence of the French people.

00:28:42.560 --> 00:28:43.720
Sarkozy: Hello, Mr. Guide.

00:28:43.880 --> 00:28:47.040
I retain a wonderful memory
of the quality of your analysis.

00:28:47.240 --> 00:28:50.880
Gaddafi: We are reassured to have
a friend in Europe now.

00:28:51.040 --> 00:28:54.280
Sarkozy: Who should I meet with
to discuss sensitive issues?

00:28:54.440 --> 00:28:56.640
Is it Mr. Bashir?

00:28:56.800 --> 00:29:00.280
Gaddafi: Yes, Bashir.
You can reach an agreement directly...

00:29:00.800 --> 00:29:02.440
Sarkozy: Right, Mr. Guide.

00:29:02.600 --> 00:29:05.280
I'll meet with Mr. Bashir
and find an agreement with him.

00:29:05.440 --> 00:29:08.200
Gaddafi: Goodbye, Mr. President.

00:29:08.640 --> 00:29:11.560
Sarkozy: Goodbye, Mr. Guide.
I'm counting on your prayers.

00:29:11.720 --> 00:29:16.320
I don't pray the same way you do,
but we pray to the same god.

00:29:19.000 --> 00:29:20.360
A few days later,

00:29:20.520 --> 00:29:23.320
Muammar Gaddafi offered
the new French president

00:29:23.480 --> 00:29:27.200
the release of five Bulgarian nurses
and a Palestinian doctor

00:29:27.360 --> 00:29:29.440
who'd been jailed in Libya
for several years.

00:29:29.880 --> 00:29:32.760
Their ordeal had moved
international opinion.

00:29:33.560 --> 00:29:35.760
And so an official French plane

00:29:35.920 --> 00:29:39.120
landed in Bulgaria on July 24, 2007,

00:29:39.320 --> 00:29:41.520
returning the prisoners to freedom.

00:29:42.400 --> 00:29:43.720
But surprise,

00:29:44.200 --> 00:29:46.200
the event was also a marital one.

00:29:46.560 --> 00:29:48.960
Cécilia Sarkozy, the president's wife,

00:29:49.120 --> 00:29:54.040
had been entrusted by him with working out
the last details of their release.

00:29:55.920 --> 00:29:58.280
I wanted to tell you how happy we are

00:29:59.080 --> 00:30:01.320
about the end of this long ordeal

00:30:01.920 --> 00:30:03.640
endured by five women.

00:30:04.640 --> 00:30:06.600
You'll also understand

00:30:06.960 --> 00:30:11.040
that I want to congratulate Cécilia
for her remarkable job.

00:30:12.440 --> 00:30:15.120
A short but nonetheless
sincere statement.

00:30:16.280 --> 00:30:17.800
Barely 24 hours later,

00:30:18.600 --> 00:30:21.400
Nicolas Sarkozy flew to Libya.

00:30:22.080 --> 00:30:24.120
The new French president

00:30:24.320 --> 00:30:28.000
devoted his first official visit
to the guide of the revolution,

00:30:28.200 --> 00:30:29.960
Colonel Gaddafi.

00:30:38.480 --> 00:30:42.000
The French president
and the Libyan dictator

00:30:42.200 --> 00:30:45.440
were enjoying a public honeymoon.

00:30:46.440 --> 00:30:49.960
The high point of their friendship
would come six months later:

00:30:50.200 --> 00:30:53.360
Muammar Gaddafi's
official visit to France.

00:30:55.040 --> 00:30:56.760
On December 10, 2007,

00:30:57.200 --> 00:30:59.640
Muammar Gaddafi's plane
landed at Orly airport.

00:31:01.720 --> 00:31:03.840
For the first time in 35 years,

00:31:04.000 --> 00:31:06.760
the former godfather of terrorism

00:31:06.920 --> 00:31:08.680
received a prestigious welcome

00:31:08.840 --> 00:31:11.000
in a major Western capital.

00:31:16.840 --> 00:31:21.880
Diplomatic practice in France is for
official visits to last three days.

00:31:22.600 --> 00:31:27.120
Muammar Gaddafi asked to extend his
for three more.

00:31:28.240 --> 00:31:29.880
And so for six days,

00:31:30.040 --> 00:31:35.720
the dictator, who pitched his Bedouin tent
in the gardens of the Republic,

00:31:35.880 --> 00:31:38.880
crisscrossed Paris from
one tourist destination to another.

00:31:39.040 --> 00:31:41.280
Gaddafi the tourist
is having a whale of a time.

00:31:41.440 --> 00:31:42.840
Bateaux-mouches, Eiffel Tower,

00:31:43.000 --> 00:31:46.200
30 minutes at the Louvre,
including three with the Mona Lisa,

00:31:46.360 --> 00:31:49.200
an hour at Versailles,
a dream for his Amazonian guard...

00:31:49.360 --> 00:31:51.960
He's been to Versailles, to the Louvre.

00:31:52.120 --> 00:31:55.680
His clothes and schedule change,
but one thing is constant: the traffic jams.

00:31:58.560 --> 00:32:01.360
Sister of Jean-Pierre Klein,
victim of the DC-10 attack

00:32:01.560 --> 00:32:03.720
Founder of the
Association of Terrorism Victims

00:32:03.880 --> 00:32:06.480
For us, and for me particulary,

00:32:06.640 --> 00:32:09.280
it was a grotesque period.

00:32:09.680 --> 00:32:14.280
We had no idea what was going on.
It was insane.

00:32:14.440 --> 00:32:15.880
The tent,

00:32:16.960 --> 00:32:19.800
Paris shut down, Versailles,

00:32:19.960 --> 00:32:25.080
Gaddafi in the cold weather
with his fur coat and hat.

00:32:25.280 --> 00:32:29.360
It was incomprehensible to us.

00:32:29.920 --> 00:32:33.960
The pomp and circumstance deployed
for the dictator shocked public opinion

00:32:34.120 --> 00:32:36.960
and scandalized deputies
in the National Assembly,

00:32:37.120 --> 00:32:39.400
as well as some members
of the government.

00:32:40.240 --> 00:32:41.920
The defuse the controversy,

00:32:42.480 --> 00:32:45.840
the indispensable Claude Guéant
was sent to the front.

00:32:46.000 --> 00:32:49.360
Has Colonel Gaddafi reformed enough

00:32:49.520 --> 00:32:51.480
to justify such a reception in France,

00:32:51.640 --> 00:32:54.920
one that no other major Western nation
has yet granted him?

00:32:55.360 --> 00:32:59.800
He was welcomed as are
all other heads of state visiting France.

00:32:59.960 --> 00:33:03.680
But the efforts of the chief of staff
to the French president

00:33:03.840 --> 00:33:07.360
did not quell the controversy
that was growing by the day.

00:33:08.640 --> 00:33:10.440
To silence the carping,

00:33:10.600 --> 00:33:13.080
Nicolas Sarkozy played his joker.

00:33:13.280 --> 00:33:16.640
It's all very well the talk
and posturing about human rights

00:33:16.800 --> 00:33:19.560
at the Café de Flore
and the Zenith arena.

00:33:19.760 --> 00:33:22.960
Gone was the criticism of realpolitik

00:33:23.120 --> 00:33:25.120
winning out over values.

00:33:25.760 --> 00:33:28.320
I'll be signing tens of billions
in contracts

00:33:28.480 --> 00:33:30.680
with our Libyan counterparts.

00:33:30.840 --> 00:33:32.600
It's about French jobs and growth.

00:33:32.920 --> 00:33:34.600
And he staged for the press,

00:33:35.120 --> 00:33:38.360
with Muammar Gaddafi's
jovial complicity,

00:33:38.520 --> 00:33:42.240
the signing of contracts with Libya
for a stated value of

00:33:42.400 --> 00:33:44.560
a total of 10 billion euros.

00:33:45.280 --> 00:33:50.400
There was talk of billions in contracts
that would fill France's coffers

00:33:50.560 --> 00:33:55.560
and provoke a tidal wave of growth
in the French economy.

00:33:55.720 --> 00:33:58.720
Almost no one believed it.

00:33:58.880 --> 00:34:01.760
For us, the victims of the DC-10,

00:34:01.920 --> 00:34:06.600
the most unbelievable was the invitation
from Sarkozy,

00:34:06.760 --> 00:34:09.040
because he did the inviting.

00:34:09.800 --> 00:34:12.720
The pomp, all the time spent with him,

00:34:13.040 --> 00:34:15.360
the impression
that Gaddafi was everywhere,

00:34:15.520 --> 00:34:17.960
and that we couldn't get away from him.

00:34:18.120 --> 00:34:21.400
We couldn't make sense of it.

00:34:21.560 --> 00:34:23.200
In the end,

00:34:24.200 --> 00:34:26.760
Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president,

00:34:26.920 --> 00:34:30.360
accepted us at -
or rather invited us to -

00:34:31.000 --> 00:34:36.640
the Elysée Palace on
the last day Gaddafi was in Paris,

00:34:36.800 --> 00:34:38.960
to meet us and talk to us.

00:34:40.520 --> 00:34:43.800
That meeting was quite incredible

00:34:43.960 --> 00:34:46.080
when you think back on it,

00:34:46.280 --> 00:34:51.120
but at the time it calmed us in a way.

00:34:51.320 --> 00:34:54.480
Nicolas Sarkozy took the time
to listen to us.

00:34:54.640 --> 00:34:57.960
And I remember him saying,
more than once:

00:34:58.200 --> 00:34:59.840
"You're wonderful people."

00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:02.000
And we took it at face value.

00:35:03.920 --> 00:35:05.240
And we needed to.

00:35:07.720 --> 00:35:12.880
Nicolas Sarkozy had just been elected,
a young president,

00:35:13.400 --> 00:35:16.040
and he received families
affected by a terrorist attack.

00:35:16.240 --> 00:35:19.960
And now we discover that the same man

00:35:20.120 --> 00:35:23.840
had been elected thanks to money

00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:28.760
received from the people who killed
our brothers, sisters, mothers, families.

00:35:29.480 --> 00:35:33.640
In hindsight,
if what is coming to light now,

00:35:33.840 --> 00:35:38.200
what we know from the investigation,

00:35:38.360 --> 00:35:40.280
proves to be true,

00:35:41.280 --> 00:35:44.760
that moment
when he received the families

00:35:44.920 --> 00:35:49.560
makes it even worse.

00:35:55.680 --> 00:36:00.360
Nicolas Sarkozy gave Muammar Gaddafi
what he wanted most,

00:36:00.800 --> 00:36:03.480
and what he was prepared
to pay dearly for:

00:36:03.640 --> 00:36:07.720
for Libya to become
a respectable country again,

00:36:07.880 --> 00:36:12.280
one that a great democracy like France,
home of the Declaration of the Rights of Man,

00:36:12.440 --> 00:36:14.400
can talk to.

00:36:14.560 --> 00:36:18.960
The man who made that possible
for Muammar Gaddafi was Nicolas Sarkozy.

00:36:20.760 --> 00:36:23.480
As his official visit to France
was drawing to a close,

00:36:23.640 --> 00:36:27.880
Colonel Gaddafi could never
have known that, just four years later,

00:36:28.360 --> 00:36:30.400
his relationship
with the French president

00:36:31.000 --> 00:36:33.360
would change abruptly.

00:36:40.480 --> 00:36:43.320
The Warmonger

00:36:46.480 --> 00:36:49.800
During the wave of Arab Spring
popular revolts

00:36:49.960 --> 00:36:51.680
that began in Tunisia,

00:36:52.200 --> 00:36:55.080
riots broke out in Benghazi,
in eastern Libya,

00:36:55.280 --> 00:36:57.040
in February 2011.

00:36:57.400 --> 00:36:59.400
It was the beginning of a civil war.

00:37:00.600 --> 00:37:02.240
To the surprise of all,

00:37:02.400 --> 00:37:05.360
Nicolas Sarkozy
was the first head of state to receive

00:37:05.520 --> 00:37:08.080
and recognize
the opponents of Colonel Gaddafi

00:37:08.280 --> 00:37:10.800
as the only legitimate power in Libya.

00:37:11.600 --> 00:37:15.520
And just four years after hosting
Muammar Gaddafi with great fanfare,

00:37:15.680 --> 00:37:19.080
the French president began
a diplomatic offensive

00:37:19.280 --> 00:37:21.960
to obtain
UN Security Council authorization

00:37:22.120 --> 00:37:24.960
for a military intervention in Libya.

00:37:25.240 --> 00:37:28.680
We have a job to do within
a very specific legal framework,

00:37:28.840 --> 00:37:30.640
that of the United Nations:

00:37:30.800 --> 00:37:32.000
avoid deaths.

00:37:32.640 --> 00:37:34.680
That was the context

00:37:34.840 --> 00:37:40.600
in which Muammar Gaddafi
made the rather strange statement

00:37:41.760 --> 00:37:46.680
that if Nicolas Sarkozy
bombed his country,

00:37:46.840 --> 00:37:49.200
he could reveal "an important secret".

00:37:51.520 --> 00:37:57.120
That secret was revealed a few days later
by one of the dictator's sons,

00:37:57.320 --> 00:37:58.800
Saif al-Islam.

00:37:59.240 --> 00:38:04.200
When asked about France's eagerness
to intervene in Libya militarily,

00:38:04.760 --> 00:38:07.200
to content
of his statement was explosive.

00:38:09.000 --> 00:38:13.800
First of all, Sarkozy should return the money
he accepted from Libya to fund his campaign.

00:38:14.880 --> 00:38:18.440
We financed his campaign,
and we have the proof.

00:38:19.520 --> 00:38:21.080
We can reveal everything.

00:38:21.280 --> 00:38:25.360
We demand that the clown
return that money to the Libyan people.

00:38:26.440 --> 00:38:29.360
It provoked
very little political comment.

00:38:29.520 --> 00:38:35.320
People imagined it was one of
the dictator's final boasts.

00:38:35.760 --> 00:38:38.720
Since it was made at the start of a war

00:38:38.880 --> 00:38:42.000
and by a regime dignitary,

00:38:42.600 --> 00:38:46.960
we interpreted it with caution.

00:38:47.120 --> 00:38:50.120
Nevertheless, we're journalists.

00:38:50.320 --> 00:38:54.680
At Mediapart, we had the digital archives
of Ziad Takieddine

00:38:54.840 --> 00:38:58.520
that provided us with specific elements

00:38:58.680 --> 00:39:04.680
with which to understand the reality of
Franco-Libyan history from the early 2000s,

00:39:04.840 --> 00:39:07.960
a reality that did not correspond
to the official narrative

00:39:08.200 --> 00:39:11.480
provided by France
under Nicolas Sarkozy.

00:39:11.640 --> 00:39:15.400
The documents showed
that the narrative wasn't quite accurate,

00:39:15.560 --> 00:39:18.560
and many factual elements

00:39:18.720 --> 00:39:23.080
in Takieddine's archives
corroborated the idea

00:39:23.280 --> 00:39:28.040
of the possible corruption of
the future French president by the dictator.

00:39:29.800 --> 00:39:34.720
A patient effort of verification

00:39:34.880 --> 00:39:37.480
enabled us,
by the summer of 2011,

00:39:37.640 --> 00:39:42.000
to publish a first round of articles

00:39:42.200 --> 00:39:46.920
revealing a relationship -
initially incomprehensible -

00:39:47.080 --> 00:39:50.000
between Nicolas Sarkozy
and Muammar Gaddafi.

00:39:50.200 --> 00:39:52.320
The Dirty Truth of Sarkozy-ism

00:39:53.360 --> 00:39:56.400
"Takieddine Affair:
Arms Merchant's Assets Frozen"

00:39:56.560 --> 00:39:59.640
"Takieddine Documents:
Sarkozy Emissary Secretly Paid by Total"

00:40:01.200 --> 00:40:02.920
On March 18, 2011,

00:40:03.080 --> 00:40:06.800
a UN resolution established
a no-fly zone, prohibiting Gaddafi

00:40:06.960 --> 00:40:08.720
the use of his air force.

00:40:13.840 --> 00:40:17.240
It was immediately interpreted
by France and its supporters

00:40:17.400 --> 00:40:20.520
as an authorization to bomb
the Libyan armed forces.

00:40:21.640 --> 00:40:26.920
Thus began a war that even the Americans
called "Nicolas Sarkozy's war".

00:40:28.240 --> 00:40:30.920
There are questions
about the war in Libya

00:40:31.520 --> 00:40:35.200
that are still unanswered today.

00:40:35.520 --> 00:40:39.000
Among those unanswered questions

00:40:39.200 --> 00:40:43.680
is the choice by France to undertake
certain bombing raids.

00:40:44.000 --> 00:40:46.680
For example, in August 2011,

00:40:47.040 --> 00:40:51.360
French planes bombed
Abdullah Senussi's private home

00:40:51.520 --> 00:40:54.880
in a residential area of Tripoli,

00:40:55.040 --> 00:40:58.680
killing at least one civilian.

00:40:59.200 --> 00:41:05.000
Was Abdullah Senussi's home in
a residential area, next to a school -

00:41:05.200 --> 00:41:08.680
and where he was not even present -
a military objective?

00:41:11.720 --> 00:41:15.720
"To suggest that France unilaterally launched
raids against a convoy, home, or any target

00:41:15.880 --> 00:41:19.200
"is an absurdity
that does not stand up to any analysis.

00:41:19.360 --> 00:41:24.520
"The multinational staff of NATO
makes those decisions."

00:41:27.600 --> 00:41:30.280
Although the war
was only supposed to last a few days,

00:41:30.560 --> 00:41:33.480
it took six months for Tripoli
to fall into rebel hands.

00:41:33.960 --> 00:41:36.920
Gaddafi, on the run,
was nowhere to be found.

00:41:40.040 --> 00:41:43.440
But two months later, his convoy,
identified by the Americans,

00:41:43.760 --> 00:41:45.920
was bombed by French planes.

00:41:46.720 --> 00:41:48.360
The dictator was captured

00:41:48.520 --> 00:41:51.360
and assassinated
on October 20th near Sirte.

00:41:57.600 --> 00:42:01.080
Do you have any reaction
to the death of Mr. Gaddafi?

00:42:10.480 --> 00:42:11.880
The objective

00:42:13.280 --> 00:42:16.720
is for Libya to regain its freedom

00:42:17.960 --> 00:42:19.880
and hope for democracy.

00:42:28.200 --> 00:42:31.000
Under the Rubble

00:42:34.440 --> 00:42:37.400
The war left the country devastated,

00:42:37.560 --> 00:42:39.800
divided among political factions
and Islamists,

00:42:40.040 --> 00:42:42.960
and in a state of political chaos
that continues to this day.

00:42:44.560 --> 00:42:47.200
And Muammar Gaddafi's "important secret"

00:42:47.440 --> 00:42:49.880
could have disappeared forever
under the rubble.

00:42:50.480 --> 00:42:53.720
So the war ended,

00:42:54.720 --> 00:42:56.960
notably with the death of Gaddafi.

00:42:57.120 --> 00:43:02.920
His followers
were either dead or on the run.

00:43:03.360 --> 00:43:07.360
We took several trips

00:43:07.520 --> 00:43:12.120
to Cairo, to Tunisia.

00:43:12.320 --> 00:43:17.200
We were looking to meet members
of the former regime,

00:43:17.360 --> 00:43:21.840
hoping to interiew them,

00:43:22.000 --> 00:43:23.640
to see documents, and so on.

00:43:24.080 --> 00:43:28.480
During our investigation,

00:43:29.040 --> 00:43:33.000
we came across a document in 2012

00:43:33.200 --> 00:43:39.200
that had escaped the bombing
during the war in Libya.

00:43:39.720 --> 00:43:42.120
The document was signed

00:43:42.320 --> 00:43:46.080
by a very important man
in the Libyan hierarchy,

00:43:46.280 --> 00:43:47.800
a man named Moussa Koussa.

00:43:47.960 --> 00:43:51.240
He had led the Libyan
foreign intelligence service.

00:43:52.080 --> 00:43:57.080
The document laid out
how the authorities had agreed

00:43:57.280 --> 00:44:01.360
to finance Nicolas Sarkozy's campaign

00:44:01.520 --> 00:44:03.480
to the tune of 50 million euros,

00:44:03.640 --> 00:44:08.560
and that he, Koussa, approved that
decision by the General People's Committee.

00:44:08.720 --> 00:44:10.840
In short, it shows the intent

00:44:11.280 --> 00:44:15.800
to finance Nicolas Sarkozy's campaign.

00:44:15.960 --> 00:44:20.840
The memo refers to a meeting
attended on the Libyan side

00:44:21.000 --> 00:44:23.120
by Abdullah Senussi and Bashir Saleh,

00:44:23.320 --> 00:44:25.960
Muammar Gaddafi's chief of staff,

00:44:26.280 --> 00:44:30.120
and on the French side by
Brice Hortefeux and Ziad Takieddine.

00:44:30.640 --> 00:44:33.640
It reports that an agreement was reached

00:44:33.800 --> 00:44:37.280
on an amount the Libyan regime
was prepared to contribute

00:44:37.440 --> 00:44:39.760
to Nicolas Sarkozy's campaign.

00:44:40.840 --> 00:44:44.560
When you're holding such a document,

00:44:45.320 --> 00:44:47.240
it obviously burns your fingers.

00:44:47.400 --> 00:44:51.800
But it's not because it burned our fingers
and supported clues we'd already gathered

00:44:51.960 --> 00:44:53.280
that it was true.

00:44:53.440 --> 00:44:57.480
So we had to verify the document.

00:44:57.640 --> 00:45:01.920
We returned to Paris, had it translated

00:45:02.080 --> 00:45:05.280
a first time, then a second time.
We showed it to experts,

00:45:05.440 --> 00:45:10.200
to authenticate the date,
the official stamps, etc.

00:45:10.360 --> 00:45:15.240
We met a number of official sources,
French and Libyan,

00:45:15.400 --> 00:45:21.400
who allowed us to formally confirm
the authenticity of the document.

00:45:21.800 --> 00:45:24.520
Nicolas! Nicolas!

00:45:24.840 --> 00:45:29.200
Nicolas Sarkozy was still unaware of
the ongoing evaluation of the Koussa memo.

00:45:29.520 --> 00:45:32.360
For him, the war in Libya was already
a distant memory.

00:45:32.880 --> 00:45:35.400
His attention was on
a new presidential campaign.

00:45:36.040 --> 00:45:37.480
Running for re-election,

00:45:37.640 --> 00:45:40.040
he held rally after sumptuous rally.

00:45:41.000 --> 00:45:44.000
I'll be criticized and I'll be attacked,

00:45:44.200 --> 00:45:47.520
but I don't care because I told the truth.

00:45:49.040 --> 00:45:53.560
At the newspaper,
we were in a very difficult situation.

00:45:54.080 --> 00:45:59.360
The timing was very delicate
for us as journalists,

00:45:59.520 --> 00:46:01.600
and made us very uneasy.

00:46:01.760 --> 00:46:04.080
We had a large amount
of verified information.

00:46:04.440 --> 00:46:09.480
And it was between the two rounds
of the election Sarkozy was running in.

00:46:10.200 --> 00:46:12.600
Should we publish or not?

00:46:13.320 --> 00:46:17.440
As president, I will ensure
the justice system operates independently.

00:46:18.000 --> 00:46:23.840
As president, I will ensure my behavior
is exemplary at all times.

00:46:24.200 --> 00:46:27.360
Let me tell you, the office of the president
is not a normal office.

00:46:28.280 --> 00:46:33.920
But in fact, the presidential campaign
obliged us to publish the elements we had.

00:46:34.240 --> 00:46:37.520
It was the moment of choice,

00:46:37.680 --> 00:46:41.440
the moment when political positions
were being debated,

00:46:41.600 --> 00:46:47.600
positions that included questions of
transparency, of financing...

00:46:47.760 --> 00:46:51.840
So in a way,
that document entered fully

00:46:52.000 --> 00:46:55.560
into the field of the presidential debate.

00:46:55.920 --> 00:46:57.400
"Sarkozy-Gaddafi: Proof of Funding"

00:46:57.560 --> 00:47:01.840
Mediapart published the Moussa Koussa
memo on April 28, 2012,

00:47:02.320 --> 00:47:05.120
between the two rounds
of the presidential election.

00:47:06.320 --> 00:47:09.760
Nicolas Sarkozy was questioned publicly
for the first time

00:47:09.920 --> 00:47:12.760
about the financing
of his 2007 campaign.

00:47:12.920 --> 00:47:15.240
Last question before
opening to the audience:

00:47:15.400 --> 00:47:19.760
Online sources affirm that Colonel Gaddafi
financed your 2007 campaign.

00:47:19.920 --> 00:47:20.960
Is that true?

00:47:21.200 --> 00:47:24.120
If he did, I wasn't very grateful.

00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:29.640
His son, Saif al-Islam,
claims you received money

00:47:29.800 --> 00:47:30.840
from the Gaddafi family.

00:47:31.000 --> 00:47:32.760
A moral reference, I'm sure.

00:47:32.920 --> 00:47:36.000
I pity you for being a spokesperson
for Gaddafi's son.

00:47:36.200 --> 00:47:39.240
When you quote Mr. Gaddafi, his son -

00:47:39.400 --> 00:47:40.800
Mr. Gaddafi is dead -

00:47:40.960 --> 00:47:42.680
his son, who has blood on his hands,

00:47:42.840 --> 00:47:47.360
part of a regime of dictators, of murderers,
that has no credibility,

00:47:47.520 --> 00:47:52.520
and when you give voice
to the questions he asked,

00:47:52.680 --> 00:47:58.360
frankly, I think that's going very low
in the political debate.

00:47:58.520 --> 00:48:00.080
Very soon afterwards,

00:48:01.680 --> 00:48:05.200
Nicolas Sarkozy denied it,

00:48:05.560 --> 00:48:09.080
and announced that he would
lodge a complaint against us.

00:48:09.280 --> 00:48:12.880
And he did in fact file a complaint
in the following days.

00:48:13.560 --> 00:48:15.760
His response was very muscular,

00:48:15.920 --> 00:48:19.800
and accused us of publishing
a fake document.

00:48:19.960 --> 00:48:21.640
For three and a half years,

00:48:21.800 --> 00:48:26.720
Mediapart had to wage a legal battle
against Nicolas Sarkozy,

00:48:26.880 --> 00:48:30.640
and against Brice Hortefeux,
who joined the complaint,

00:48:30.800 --> 00:48:33.680
to prove that we did our work well

00:48:33.840 --> 00:48:35.880
and that the document was not a forgery.

00:48:36.040 --> 00:48:37.480
The justice system,

00:48:37.640 --> 00:48:40.000
from the examining magistrates

00:48:40.200 --> 00:48:42.360
to the appellate court

00:48:42.520 --> 00:48:44.760
to the court of cassation,

00:48:44.920 --> 00:48:48.960
which is the highest court in France,

00:48:49.120 --> 00:48:53.760
all of them, three times,
formally declared that the document

00:48:53.920 --> 00:48:57.680
was not a forgery,
contrary to the claims of Nicolas Sarkozy.

00:48:57.840 --> 00:49:00.600
- It's a fake.
- Made by whom?

00:49:00.760 --> 00:49:03.960
First, Mediapart lies all the time.

00:49:04.120 --> 00:49:06.040
And what is Mediapart?
A tool.

00:49:06.240 --> 00:49:09.240
- Of whom?
- You know very well. Of the left.

00:49:09.400 --> 00:49:12.200
The document is a crude forgery.

00:49:12.360 --> 00:49:13.600
Why do you say that?

00:49:13.760 --> 00:49:19.240
Because the two people in Libya
who supposedly sent and received it

00:49:19.400 --> 00:49:21.000
have refuted it.

00:49:21.200 --> 00:49:26.320
Nicolas Sarkozy didn't limit himself
to repeating that the document was fake.

00:49:26.600 --> 00:49:32.200
He and his lawyers quickly provided a denial
from one of Gaddafi's closest associates,

00:49:32.720 --> 00:49:36.240
Bashir Saleh,
the recipient of the Koussa memo.

00:49:37.000 --> 00:49:41.080
Bashir Saleh was no stranger
to Nicolas Sarkozy.

00:49:41.520 --> 00:49:45.560
Let us recall the conversation
between Muammar Gaddafi

00:49:45.720 --> 00:49:48.800
and the newly-elected
president of France.

00:49:49.520 --> 00:49:51.440
Transcribed phone call from
12 days after Sarkozy's election

00:49:51.600 --> 00:49:55.280
Sarkozy: Who should I meet with
to discuss sensitive issues?

00:49:55.440 --> 00:49:57.000
Is it Mr. Bashir?

00:49:57.200 --> 00:49:58.840
Gaddafi: Yes, Bashir.
You can reach an agreement directly...

00:49:59.000 --> 00:50:03.040
Bashir Saleh was the man
Nicolas Sarkozy hugged

00:50:03.240 --> 00:50:05.240
when he got off the plane in Tripoli

00:50:05.400 --> 00:50:07.080
in July 2007.

00:50:09.720 --> 00:50:11.400
During the war in Libya,

00:50:11.560 --> 00:50:15.240
Bashir Saleh was arrested
by the Libyan rebels.

00:50:15.400 --> 00:50:18.880
He was to stand trial, accused of a number
of crimes and misdemeanors,

00:50:19.040 --> 00:50:22.600
including embezzling
and corruptly spending

00:50:22.760 --> 00:50:26.280
the public funds of the Libyan people.

00:50:26.440 --> 00:50:30.960
But while he was in the custody of
the new Libyan government,

00:50:31.200 --> 00:50:35.480
the French secret services, the DGSE,
organized his exfiltration.

00:50:35.640 --> 00:50:39.000
In other words, we removed him

00:50:39.200 --> 00:50:42.280
from the Libyan authorities
that we put in place

00:50:42.440 --> 00:50:46.960
to enable him to escape justice
in his own country

00:50:47.120 --> 00:50:49.000
and to reach France...

00:50:49.200 --> 00:50:53.520
...where he was welcomed
by the Sarkozy clan.

00:50:53.680 --> 00:50:59.320
He received a temporary residence permit,

00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:03.720
and was sheltered until things settled down.

00:51:03.880 --> 00:51:07.040
As the newspaper was under attack
by the Sarkozy clan,

00:51:07.240 --> 00:51:10.360
the press discovered
that Bashir Saleh was in France,

00:51:10.520 --> 00:51:12.720
protected by French authorities,

00:51:13.120 --> 00:51:16.200
even as he was the target
of and Interpol arrest warrant.

00:51:16.680 --> 00:51:22.680
That created a lot of confusion
in the executive branch,

00:51:22.840 --> 00:51:25.760
which had to say both:

00:51:25.920 --> 00:51:31.240
"Yes, he received a residency permit",

00:51:31.400 --> 00:51:33.080
and "But we'll look for him anyway."

00:51:33.280 --> 00:51:36.080
Bashir Saleh denied receiving the memo.

00:51:36.280 --> 00:51:38.200
But he's wanted by Interpol

00:51:38.360 --> 00:51:42.400
while living in France,
as confirmed by Libération this morning.

00:51:42.560 --> 00:51:47.120
- Can you confirm that?
- That's not quite accurate.

00:51:47.320 --> 00:51:50.240
First, you say he's wanted by Interpol,

00:51:50.400 --> 00:51:55.720
but we have no trace of an international
arrest warrant for Mr. Bashir Saleh.

00:51:55.880 --> 00:51:57.120
The press affirmed it on Saturday.

00:51:57.320 --> 00:52:00.560
Perhaps, but I presume the French government
would be aware of it.

00:52:00.720 --> 00:52:05.240
What happened next?
It was between the two election rounds,

00:52:05.400 --> 00:52:08.960
and something happened that was
straight out of a film.

00:52:09.400 --> 00:52:11.440
Once again, France

00:52:11.600 --> 00:52:14.880
organized the exfiltration
of Bashir Saleh.

00:52:15.040 --> 00:52:20.760
The scene revolved
around two characters:

00:52:21.080 --> 00:52:22.720
the intermediary Alexandre Djouhri,

00:52:22.880 --> 00:52:25.960
and Sarkozy's head
of domestic intelligence,

00:52:26.120 --> 00:52:29.240
a man named Bernard Squarcini.

00:52:29.400 --> 00:52:34.040
The two men met near the Eiffel Tower

00:52:34.240 --> 00:52:36.840
in early May 2012,

00:52:37.000 --> 00:52:39.280
and discreetly organized -

00:52:39.440 --> 00:52:41.920
via private jet -

00:52:42.080 --> 00:52:46.360
the exfiltration, indeed the escape,
of Bashir Saleh,

00:52:46.520 --> 00:52:50.360
even as he was wanted
under an Interpol red notice.

00:52:56.200 --> 00:52:59.120
The Second Man in the Shadows

00:53:02.240 --> 00:53:04.480
The man who exfiltrated Bashir Saleh

00:53:04.640 --> 00:53:07.520
was the second intermediary
in the secret negotiations

00:53:07.680 --> 00:53:11.240
between the Libyan dictatorship
and Nicolas Sarkozy's team.

00:53:12.080 --> 00:53:14.440
A rival of Ziad Takieddine named

00:53:14.600 --> 00:53:17.240
Alexandre Djouhri.

00:53:17.880 --> 00:53:21.960
Though suspected in his youth
of belonging to criminal gangs,

00:53:22.200 --> 00:53:24.280
albeit never convicted,

00:53:24.640 --> 00:53:27.840
Alexandre Djouhri deployed a gift of gab,
know-how, and a lot of nerve

00:53:28.000 --> 00:53:31.120
to end up doing deals

00:53:31.320 --> 00:53:34.240
among the French elite.

00:53:37.120 --> 00:53:39.600
Initially linked to
Jacques Chirac's entourage,

00:53:40.240 --> 00:53:43.400
he gradually grew closer to
Nicolas Sarkozy's clan.

00:53:44.440 --> 00:53:45.920
Good evening, Alexandre Djouhri.

00:53:46.320 --> 00:53:48.520
Good evening, David Pujadas.

00:53:48.680 --> 00:53:51.320
Thank you for receiving us
here in London,

00:53:51.480 --> 00:53:52.880
and for granting this interview.

00:53:53.040 --> 00:53:55.960
For 30 years, you've been a
behind-the-scenes man,

00:53:56.240 --> 00:53:59.080
a discreet, even secretive man,
mixing with heads of state

00:53:59.480 --> 00:54:01.120
as well as major business figures.

00:54:01.320 --> 00:54:03.720
In fact, how would you define
your profession?

00:54:04.040 --> 00:54:06.000
You reject the term "intermediary".

00:54:06.200 --> 00:54:06.960
Absolutely.

00:54:07.880 --> 00:54:09.880
He was the second character

00:54:10.320 --> 00:54:12.760
who participated,

00:54:13.280 --> 00:54:17.200
on the French side,
in Nicolas Sarkozy's campaign.

00:54:17.360 --> 00:54:19.920
You have Mediapart
explaining in an article

00:54:20.080 --> 00:54:24.280
that there was financing for the campaign
because a guy called Senussi,

00:54:24.440 --> 00:54:26.880
who was sentenced in absentia
to life imprisonment

00:54:27.040 --> 00:54:28.920
for the attack on the UTA DC-10,

00:54:29.080 --> 00:54:32.520
and Saif Gaddafi, apprentice dictator
with blood on his hands...

00:54:32.680 --> 00:54:34.800
- The son...
- Yes, Gaddafi's son.

00:54:34.960 --> 00:54:38.440
And a guy called Ziad Takieddine,
who you can't blame

00:54:38.600 --> 00:54:40.240
because he's fit for the asylum.

00:54:41.200 --> 00:54:44.200
Alexandre Djouhri had a lot of contacts,

00:54:44.520 --> 00:54:45.880
a network,

00:54:46.040 --> 00:54:49.200
and in the police,
he had Bernard Squarcini.

00:54:49.760 --> 00:54:54.800
Extract from a wiretap between
Alexandre Djouhri and Bernard Squarcini

00:54:54.960 --> 00:54:55.960
Hello.

00:54:56.640 --> 00:54:57.600
Yeah, Bernard...

00:54:57.760 --> 00:54:58.880
Yeah, Alex, how's it going?

00:54:59.040 --> 00:55:01.360
- You didn't call me back?
- Oh, shit.

00:55:01.520 --> 00:55:06.200
I was caught up at LVMH
and completely forgot. Sorry.

00:55:08.360 --> 00:55:09.800
- Hello?
- Hi, Alex.

00:55:09.960 --> 00:55:12.320
- Hi, Bernard.
- I'm waiting for an answer.

00:55:12.480 --> 00:55:14.680
He still hasn't named
a date or anything.

00:55:14.840 --> 00:55:16.720
He asked me 10 days ago
who I'm coming with,

00:55:16.880 --> 00:55:19.680
and I said with
Nicolas and Claude's friend.

00:55:19.840 --> 00:55:23.040
- When did you call him?
- Over the weekend. Yesterday.

00:55:23.320 --> 00:55:25.120
Tell him it's urgent.

00:55:25.320 --> 00:55:28.440
We really have to do this, go on attack.

00:55:28.600 --> 00:55:30.360
I get it, you silly jackass.

00:55:30.520 --> 00:55:32.520
I get it, OK.

00:55:32.680 --> 00:55:35.360
- Talk soon. Bye.
- Ciao.

00:55:38.360 --> 00:55:40.760
"I have no business
relationship with him...

00:55:40.920 --> 00:55:44.680
"But a guy like that, who mixes
with bigwigs, you've got to see him.

00:55:44.840 --> 00:55:47.400
"He's the interesting piece
of the puzzle."

00:55:48.240 --> 00:55:53.840
The Squarcini-Djouhri connection
is another highly problematic one.

00:55:54.000 --> 00:55:57.120
Having the head of domestic intelligence

00:55:57.920 --> 00:56:01.280
in your pocket, or "with you",

00:56:01.440 --> 00:56:03.640
when you're running
such operations is a big deal.

00:56:03.800 --> 00:56:05.680
You have information
about your adversaries,

00:56:05.840 --> 00:56:09.520
about what's going on
in various places.

00:56:09.680 --> 00:56:11.760
It's a major intelligence service,

00:56:11.920 --> 00:56:16.520
and Djouhri put the relationship
to good use

00:56:17.680 --> 00:56:20.320
on many levels and on many occasions.

00:56:21.920 --> 00:56:25.840
You've reached Bernard Squarcini.
I'm not available right now.

00:56:26.000 --> 00:56:30.120
Please leave a message
and I'll call you back as soon as possible.

00:56:31.360 --> 00:56:34.800
Commando Bernard, attack!
Call me back.

00:56:34.960 --> 00:56:37.080
I'm in the starting blocks.

00:56:38.640 --> 00:56:40.960
Following the revelations by Mediapart,

00:56:41.120 --> 00:56:46.080
Alexandre Djouhri was questioned about
his role in exfiltrating Bashir Saleh

00:56:46.480 --> 00:56:48.640
between the two rounds
of the 2012 election.

00:56:48.800 --> 00:56:51.040
Bashir Saleh is a gentleman

00:56:51.560 --> 00:56:54.000
who had an appointment in Niger.

00:56:54.520 --> 00:56:57.000
He told me: "I'm going to leave.

00:56:57.200 --> 00:56:59.520
"I have a meeting, and I'll be back."

00:56:59.680 --> 00:57:01.320
I didn't know he wasn't coming back.

00:57:01.480 --> 00:57:05.520
From Niger,
Bashir Saleh fled to South Africa.

00:57:06.200 --> 00:57:07.440
Over the years,

00:57:07.600 --> 00:57:12.600
he's been questioned regularly about
Libyan funding for Sarkozy's campaign.

00:57:12.760 --> 00:57:17.640
If I gave to Sarkozy, I'd say I gave it.
We never gave money to Sarkozy.

00:57:17.800 --> 00:57:22.320
I'm not the person responsible for that
because my hands are empty.

00:57:22.480 --> 00:57:24.360
In fact, Bashir Saleh

00:57:24.680 --> 00:57:27.880
knows he owes his life
to Nicolas Sarkozy's France.

00:57:28.040 --> 00:57:32.760
And for years, Bashir Saleh was
one of Nicolas Sarkozy's trump cards

00:57:32.920 --> 00:57:35.280
in the Libyan financing scandal,

00:57:35.440 --> 00:57:37.120
serving as a witness for the defense.

00:57:37.320 --> 00:57:40.960
Does the fact
that France helped you flee Libya

00:57:41.120 --> 00:57:43.720
make you indebted to Nicolas Sarkozy?

00:57:43.880 --> 00:57:45.480
And is that why

00:57:45.640 --> 00:57:50.800
you deny any possible funding
of his campaign by Libya?

00:57:50.960 --> 00:57:52.760
In other words, do you owe him?

00:57:52.920 --> 00:57:54.840
No, no.

00:57:55.000 --> 00:57:56.880
I only tell the truth.

00:57:57.560 --> 00:57:59.960
But over time, Bashir Saleh

00:58:00.200 --> 00:58:03.800
became less and less
a witness for the former president.

00:58:04.080 --> 00:58:05.520
And in late 2017,

00:58:05.680 --> 00:58:07.920
with journalist Nicolas Vescovacci

00:58:08.080 --> 00:58:10.240
on the program "Cash Investigation",

00:58:10.400 --> 00:58:12.600
Bashir Saleh admitted for the first time

00:58:13.040 --> 00:58:16.440
that there had been financing
of Nicolas Sarkozy's campaign.

00:58:16.760 --> 00:58:19.320
I think he gave money.

00:58:19.760 --> 00:58:22.920
Senussi said he gave money
to Nicolas Sarkozy.

00:58:23.240 --> 00:58:26.480
But with whom?
Not me! It's not my department.

00:58:26.920 --> 00:58:30.200
Could it be a bank transfer
via an offshore company?

00:58:30.400 --> 00:58:32.760
No one accepts transfers.

00:58:33.400 --> 00:58:35.640
You think Sarkozy
would accept a transfer?

00:58:35.800 --> 00:58:38.640
- So it could only be cash?
- Only cash.

00:58:39.320 --> 00:58:44.360
And then, just as he was beginning
to change his position

00:58:44.520 --> 00:58:46.680
on the affair,

00:58:47.240 --> 00:58:51.960
Bashir Saleh was targeted
in an attack in South Africa.

00:58:52.200 --> 00:58:57.120
He was shot by a gunman
while driving his car.

00:58:57.320 --> 00:58:59.880
Miraculously, he survived,

00:59:00.040 --> 00:59:03.760
despite being shot several times
in the torso.

00:59:04.480 --> 00:59:09.280
Bashir Saleh's somewhat distant revelations
didn't garner much attention.

00:59:09.440 --> 00:59:12.960
But another character,
the one at the origin of this story,

00:59:13.120 --> 00:59:17.200
made new statements
that resonated like thunderclaps.

00:59:23.040 --> 00:59:26.040
Witness for the Prosecution

00:59:26.360 --> 00:59:28.880
Yes, Mr. Sarkozy

00:59:29.280 --> 00:59:31.800
was financed by Libya.

00:59:31.960 --> 00:59:34.240
Yes, he is corrupt.

00:59:34.400 --> 00:59:36.440
Yes, let him deny it.

00:59:36.600 --> 00:59:38.800
Let Mr. Sarkozy deny it.

00:59:38.960 --> 00:59:42.480
Ziad Takieddine felt abandoned
by Sarkozy's people.

00:59:42.640 --> 00:59:46.760
He was abandoned by them,
even denounced by Guéant in an interview.

00:59:47.400 --> 00:59:52.920
He engaged in a test of strength with
the Sarkozy team in a rather public way.

00:59:53.080 --> 00:59:55.560
I can tell you that I know very well

00:59:56.240 --> 00:59:58.120
where everything is,

00:59:58.320 --> 01:00:00.960
and I know very well when and how
it will come out.

01:00:01.120 --> 01:00:06.000
Ziad Takieddine is a man
who came up alongside

01:00:06.760 --> 01:00:08.080
part of the French right.

01:00:08.280 --> 01:00:10.920
First Balladur's people, then Sarkozy's.

01:00:11.280 --> 01:00:14.240
He became very rich thanks to them,

01:00:14.400 --> 01:00:16.480
but he was replaced at some point.

01:00:16.640 --> 01:00:19.360
Mr. What's-his-name? Djouhri!

01:00:19.560 --> 01:00:21.920
Complicit with Mr. Guéant!

01:00:22.080 --> 01:00:24.320
Complicit in all the dirty deals
of this Republic.

01:00:24.480 --> 01:00:30.200
When Ziad Takieddine's name
got a little too hot for the political scene

01:00:30.360 --> 01:00:33.200
due to its association with the Karachi affair,

01:00:33.840 --> 01:00:38.000
he experienced what many people
in his shoes experience:

01:00:38.200 --> 01:00:39.200
he became a fuse

01:00:40.240 --> 01:00:41.680
and he was blown.

01:00:41.840 --> 01:00:46.280
But Ziad Takieddine was
one of those people who say:

01:00:46.440 --> 01:00:48.760
"If I'm going down,
I'm not going alone."

01:00:48.920 --> 01:00:50.880
- Was money paid out?
- Yes.

01:00:51.040 --> 01:00:52.200
By whom?

01:00:52.360 --> 01:00:55.000
By the Libyan authorities,
specifically Muammar Gaddafi.

01:00:55.200 --> 01:00:57.840
- To whom?
- Nicolas Sarkozy and Claude Guéant.

01:00:58.000 --> 01:01:00.000
- Directly?
- Directly.

01:01:00.200 --> 01:01:01.280
How?

01:01:01.680 --> 01:01:04.240
Via bank transfers and cash.

01:01:04.400 --> 01:01:09.320
Ziad Takieddine's thundering accusations
reached the ears of prosecutors,

01:01:09.920 --> 01:01:14.400
and two years after Mediapart published
its first articles about the affair,

01:01:14.840 --> 01:01:18.040
the legal system decided
to take up the case

01:01:18.240 --> 01:01:20.240
and open a criminal investigation.

01:01:26.320 --> 01:01:29.120
The Law Gets Involved

01:01:29.320 --> 01:01:33.320
Specialized police,
specialized prosecutors,

01:01:33.480 --> 01:01:36.320
and specialized investigating
magistrates

01:01:36.480 --> 01:01:38.720
tried in turn

01:01:38.880 --> 01:01:40.840
to document the events.

01:01:41.000 --> 01:01:42.680
They have the means

01:01:42.840 --> 01:01:47.000
that the press obviously -
and fortunately! - does not.

01:01:47.320 --> 01:01:53.320
And the investigation
patiently began to confirm

01:01:53.480 --> 01:01:56.200
what Mediapart had been saying
for two years.

01:01:56.480 --> 01:01:59.360
Investigators heard a lot of testimony

01:01:59.520 --> 01:02:02.600
and uncovered a number of documents

01:02:02.760 --> 01:02:04.320
that not only confirmed

01:02:04.640 --> 01:02:09.440
but even amplified
what we had started to expose

01:02:09.600 --> 01:02:12.080
in the Sarkozy-Gaddafi affair.

01:02:12.760 --> 01:02:14.480
From the outset of the investigation,

01:02:14.640 --> 01:02:19.120
the special officers of the anti-corruption
office took an interest in Claude Guéant.

01:02:19.520 --> 01:02:21.960
During a search of his home,

01:02:22.120 --> 01:02:24.800
they discovered in one of his bank accounts

01:02:24.960 --> 01:02:27.760
traces of a 500,000 euro payment

01:02:27.920 --> 01:02:30.000
originating in Malaysia.

01:02:30.400 --> 01:02:33.000
The funds were paid in 2008,

01:02:33.200 --> 01:02:36.000
three months after Gaddafi's visit to Paris.

01:02:36.440 --> 01:02:39.440
Claude Guéant immediately invested the money

01:02:39.600 --> 01:02:42.560
in the purchase of an apartment near the Eiffel Tower.

01:02:43.040 --> 01:02:47.280
The former presidential chief of staff
under Nicolas Sarkozy

01:02:48.240 --> 01:02:50.120
claimed the payment

01:02:50.320 --> 01:02:53.840
was for the sale of two small canvases
by a Flemish painter.

01:02:54.200 --> 01:02:56.840
It was a completely banal transaction.

01:02:57.000 --> 01:03:01.880
I simply sold two paintings that I had acquired

01:03:02.040 --> 01:03:04.960
some twenty years earlier,
and that's all.

01:03:05.120 --> 01:03:06.320
Unfortunately,

01:03:06.480 --> 01:03:11.560
Claude Guéant was unable to prove
he had ever owned the paintings.

01:03:11.760 --> 01:03:15.000
The judges even spoke
of a "fictitious sale".

01:03:15.200 --> 01:03:17.000
The paintings story was a flop,

01:03:17.200 --> 01:03:19.200
and what's more,
the financial trail

01:03:19.360 --> 01:03:22.760
was traced from the original account

01:03:23.120 --> 01:03:25.720
to another account, then a third one,
a fifth one...

01:03:26.760 --> 01:03:31.280
The courts now suspect that
Alexandre Djouhri and Bashir Saleh

01:03:31.440 --> 01:03:33.640
were behind the transaction.

01:03:34.360 --> 01:03:39.520
That Libyan money, found in the account
of one of Sarkozy's closest collaborators,

01:03:39.680 --> 01:03:41.720
provided the courts

01:03:41.880 --> 01:03:45.840
with a rationale for continuing to search
for traces of Libyan financing.

01:03:47.680 --> 01:03:50.200
And another clue
reached the investigators.

01:03:51.040 --> 01:03:52.480
To understand it,

01:03:52.800 --> 01:03:56.240
we'll need to go back a few years.

01:03:58.520 --> 01:04:00.840
April 29, 2012,

01:04:01.000 --> 01:04:03.440
between the two rounds of the election,

01:04:03.600 --> 01:04:07.800
and less than 24 hours before Mediapart
published the Koussa memo.

01:04:08.520 --> 01:04:09.480
That day,

01:04:09.640 --> 01:04:12.360
the lifeless body of one of Libya's
greatest dignitaries,

01:04:12.520 --> 01:04:15.400
former Minister of Oil Shukri Ghanem,

01:04:15.560 --> 01:04:18.520
was found floating
in the Danube in Vienna.

01:04:18.680 --> 01:04:21.600
The Austrian police investigation

01:04:22.000 --> 01:04:25.600
was very basic and concluded
the death was an accident.

01:04:25.760 --> 01:04:29.240
Shukri Ghanem had been walking

01:04:29.400 --> 01:04:32.000
in the middle of the night
and fell into the Danube

01:04:32.200 --> 01:04:34.280
and drowned.

01:04:34.680 --> 01:04:39.080
As it happens,
American intelligence officials

01:04:39.280 --> 01:04:41.600
believe the death was suspicious

01:04:41.760 --> 01:04:44.600
and that a crime was committed.

01:04:45.360 --> 01:04:48.040
Four years after his death, in 2016,

01:04:48.240 --> 01:04:50.840
a copy of Shukri Ghanem's personal diaries

01:04:51.000 --> 01:04:53.400
reached the desks of the French investigators.

01:04:53.560 --> 01:04:56.920
Among Shukri Ghanem's handwritten notes

01:04:57.080 --> 01:05:00.120
was one that's been authenticated

01:05:00.320 --> 01:05:03.280
by several European police forces.

01:05:04.200 --> 01:05:07.080
It was written in his diary

01:05:07.280 --> 01:05:10.680
in April 2007.

01:05:10.840 --> 01:05:15.080
In it, he reported
meeting with Bashir Saleh

01:05:15.280 --> 01:05:20.600
and having "taken stock"
of the financing operations

01:05:21.120 --> 01:05:22.400
for Nicolas Sarkozy.

01:05:22.560 --> 01:05:24.680
"Saleh said he transferred
1.5 million to Sarkozy.

01:05:24.840 --> 01:05:27.120
"Saif [al-Islam Gaddafi]
gave Sarkozy 3 million,

01:05:27.320 --> 01:05:29.480
"and 2 million went
via Abdullah Senussi."

01:05:29.640 --> 01:05:32.000
Shukri Ghanem wrote detailed notes,

01:05:32.200 --> 01:05:36.120
indicating that several leaders
had contributed to the financing:

01:05:36.320 --> 01:05:38.400
Bashir Saleh himself,

01:05:38.560 --> 01:05:40.960
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi,

01:05:41.120 --> 01:05:42.600
and Abdullah Senussi.

01:05:43.000 --> 01:05:46.080
That handwritten note from
the Libyan minister of oil

01:05:46.280 --> 01:05:48.600
revealed that,
following a political agreement,

01:05:48.760 --> 01:05:52.000
Muammar Gaddafi had mandated
each of the three men

01:05:52.200 --> 01:05:54.080
to contribute a share

01:05:54.280 --> 01:05:56.760
to the financing
of Nicolas Sarkozy's campaign.

01:05:56.920 --> 01:06:01.560
The document contradicted
one of Nicolas Sarkozy's arguments,

01:06:01.720 --> 01:06:05.560
that "this Gaddafi-Libyan
financing business"

01:06:05.720 --> 01:06:08.840
was made up by Gaddafi's people
during the war.

01:06:09.000 --> 01:06:11.080
That argument could have been legitimate.

01:06:11.320 --> 01:06:16.320
Gaddafi loyalists in the dictatorship
were panicking about being overthrown,

01:06:16.480 --> 01:06:18.440
so they accused France -

01:06:18.600 --> 01:06:21.920
which was the country
most committed to the war -

01:06:22.080 --> 01:06:25.480
of having been corrupted by them.
Basically, it was a smokescreen.

01:06:25.880 --> 01:06:29.240
It's a theoretically
acceptable argument.

01:06:29.760 --> 01:06:33.400
But if one of the leaders
of Gaddafi's regime

01:06:33.560 --> 01:06:34.680
wrote in 2007

01:06:34.840 --> 01:06:38.920
about payments
related to the presidential election,

01:06:39.080 --> 01:06:41.960
that completely undermines that story.

01:06:42.200 --> 01:06:45.840
They couldn't have known in 2007
that there would be a war four years later.

01:06:46.680 --> 01:06:48.560
The Gaddafi gang,

01:06:48.840 --> 01:06:50.920
which is a gang of assassins -

01:06:51.760 --> 01:06:52.880
the father,

01:06:53.560 --> 01:06:54.720
the son,

01:06:54.960 --> 01:06:56.000
the nephew,

01:06:56.200 --> 01:06:57.240
the cousin,

01:06:57.400 --> 01:06:58.640
the spokesman,

01:06:58.800 --> 01:07:01.080
the mistress, the brother-in-law -

01:07:01.920 --> 01:07:03.960
are heaping insults and slander upon me.

01:07:04.200 --> 01:07:07.120
When did it start?
The French people need to know.

01:07:07.640 --> 01:07:09.520
On March 10, 2011,

01:07:09.680 --> 01:07:13.520
I received Gaddafi's opponents, the NTC,
at the Elysée Palace.

01:07:13.680 --> 01:07:15.240
On March 11th,

01:07:15.400 --> 01:07:18.080
Mr. Gaddafi stared talking about
financing my campaign.

01:07:18.280 --> 01:07:19.520
Never before.

01:07:19.680 --> 01:07:22.640
For four years,
he never said a word about it.

01:07:22.800 --> 01:07:25.720
Nicolas Sarkozy's outraged denials

01:07:25.880 --> 01:07:30.400
got more media coverage
than Shukri Ghanem's posthumous revelations.

01:07:32.840 --> 01:07:38.440
But Ziad Takieddine would soon
make new claims about his role in the affair

01:07:38.600 --> 01:07:43.200
that would violently upend
the former president's defense strategy.

01:07:43.960 --> 01:07:46.840
A suitcase like so.

01:07:47.440 --> 01:07:49.480
It opens this way.

01:07:50.200 --> 01:07:52.240
And the money's inside.

01:07:55.200 --> 01:07:57.920
One day Mr. Sarkozy asked me
if I could

01:07:59.040 --> 01:08:01.000
be the one who

01:08:01.760 --> 01:08:06.320
could transport some of the money to

01:08:07.400 --> 01:08:08.720
Claude Guéant from Interior.

01:08:09.120 --> 01:08:12.280
I started thinking about
what I'd cover it with

01:08:12.440 --> 01:08:14.640
to hide it, if there was space.

01:08:15.120 --> 01:08:16.720
He said: "Don't worry,

01:08:17.000 --> 01:08:19.720
"the services have been informed,

01:08:19.880 --> 01:08:22.880
"so you can enter with it
and deliver it to Mr. Guéant."

01:08:23.240 --> 01:08:26.240
What was in the suitcase, exactly?

01:08:26.400 --> 01:08:28.400
Nothing other than money.

01:08:28.720 --> 01:08:32.880
In the first one there was about
1.5 million.

01:08:33.040 --> 01:08:36.960
Ziad Takieddine explained
that he transported, three times,

01:08:37.120 --> 01:08:39.400
funds to the Interior Ministry

01:08:39.560 --> 01:08:43.920
in November and December 2006
and January 2007.

01:08:44.880 --> 01:08:47.440
They asked me because they trusted me.

01:08:47.600 --> 01:08:49.520
So I took it and delivered it.

01:08:49.680 --> 01:08:52.880
He incriminated himself by saying:
"I, Ziad Takieddine,

01:08:53.040 --> 01:08:55.840
"I picked up cash in Tripoli

01:08:56.000 --> 01:08:58.320
"and I took it
to the Interior Ministry."

01:08:58.480 --> 01:09:02.520
He spoke of three trips,
for a total of five million euros,

01:09:02.960 --> 01:09:07.000
given to him by Abdullah Senussi,
him again,

01:09:07.200 --> 01:09:11.440
to take to Paris,
to the ministry on Place Beauveau.

01:09:11.600 --> 01:09:14.840
He was very precise and detailed
in his accounts.

01:09:15.000 --> 01:09:19.440
He recounted the scenes at the airport,
the bags,

01:09:19.720 --> 01:09:23.360
the handovers -
twice to Claude Guéant,

01:09:23.520 --> 01:09:28.440
and once,
he affirmed, to Nicolas Sarkozy.

01:09:29.600 --> 01:09:33.000
Did Mr. Sarkozy know why
you were dropping off the suitcase?

01:09:33.200 --> 01:09:35.240
Did he know what was inside?

01:09:35.920 --> 01:09:38.800
Frankly, of course!

01:09:43.200 --> 01:09:47.000
Claude Guéant, who contests the events,
obtained a conviction for defamation

01:09:47.200 --> 01:09:51.200
against Ziad Takieddine.

01:09:52.080 --> 01:09:55.400
Nicolas Sarkozy chose to withdraw
just before the trial.

01:09:55.560 --> 01:09:57.680
Mediapart was acquitted.

01:10:00.720 --> 01:10:05.880
Ziad Takieddine's revelation
came alongside another one,

01:10:06.040 --> 01:10:08.680
a sort of a posteriori cross-checking:

01:10:08.840 --> 01:10:12.960
the revelation of
Abdullah Senussi's deposition

01:10:13.200 --> 01:10:15.360
before the International Criminal Court.

01:10:16.120 --> 01:10:20.600
Abdullah Senussi,
the planner of the DC-10 attack,

01:10:20.760 --> 01:10:23.240
was arrested in March 2012
in Mauritania,

01:10:23.400 --> 01:10:26.120
then extradited and imprisoned in Libya.

01:10:26.600 --> 01:10:28.880
Before the International Criminal Court,

01:10:29.040 --> 01:10:34.360
he claimed to have personally supervised
the transfer of five million euros,

01:10:34.520 --> 01:10:37.320
via Ziad Takieddine and Claude Guéant,

01:10:37.480 --> 01:10:40.760
to finance Nicolas Sarkozy's
presidential campaign.

01:10:40.920 --> 01:10:45.080
It's exactly what Ziad Takieddine
accused himself of,

01:10:45.280 --> 01:10:49.040
without knowing that Abdullah Senussi
said the same thing

01:10:49.240 --> 01:10:51.320
to the International Criminal Court.

01:10:51.760 --> 01:10:55.560
Once again, is that definitive proof?
No.

01:10:55.720 --> 01:11:00.200
But it did constitute a compelling body
of evidence for the French legal system.

01:11:03.040 --> 01:11:06.600
Confronted with the serious facts
established by the investigation,

01:11:06.760 --> 01:11:09.600
Nicolas Sarkozy fought back
every inch of the way,

01:11:09.760 --> 01:11:11.720
appealing to public opinion

01:11:11.880 --> 01:11:14.920
and claiming an offense against
his status as former head of state.

01:11:15.560 --> 01:11:19.640
A simple question about what
you mentioned last night:

01:11:19.800 --> 01:11:24.360
did you or did you not
receive cash from Libya

01:11:24.520 --> 01:11:26.360
to finance your 2007 campaign

01:11:26.520 --> 01:11:29.080
as Ziad Takieddine claimed,

01:11:29.280 --> 01:11:32.480
not only to the media,
but to French magistrates yesterday?

01:11:33.720 --> 01:11:35.320
Such indignity.

01:11:36.520 --> 01:11:38.440
On a public television station.

01:11:38.720 --> 01:11:40.760
You talked about it yourself yesterday.

01:11:40.920 --> 01:11:44.920
You're not ashamed to quote a man
who's been in prison,

01:11:45.440 --> 01:11:48.640
who's been convicted countless times
for defamation,

01:11:48.800 --> 01:11:50.320
and who's a liar.

01:11:50.480 --> 01:11:53.520
That is not how I think
of the public service media.

01:12:02.480 --> 01:12:06.360
In the wake of those revelations,

01:12:06.520 --> 01:12:11.440
the investigators starting looking for cash
all over the place.

01:12:11.600 --> 01:12:16.920
In all of these major corruption,
influence-peddling,

01:12:17.080 --> 01:12:19.600
and hidden political financing cases,

01:12:20.280 --> 01:12:23.880
one question always comes up,
that of the cash.

01:12:24.040 --> 01:12:28.640
Why? Because it's always used
for a very understandable reason:

01:12:28.800 --> 01:12:30.840
it leaves no trace.

01:12:31.200 --> 01:12:36.840
The investigators looked into the movement
of cash within the UMP and Les Républicains.

01:12:37.000 --> 01:12:38.760
Why so much cash?

01:12:40.040 --> 01:12:43.760
Evidence accumulated
about cash in a closet

01:12:43.920 --> 01:12:46.080
at the HQ of Les Républicains.

01:12:46.280 --> 01:12:50.480
It became clear that,
at the end of the campaign,

01:12:50.640 --> 01:12:54.840
all of the bonuses and
end-of-contract payments

01:12:55.000 --> 01:12:57.480
were paid in cash.

01:12:58.000 --> 01:13:01.000
According to one legal expert's report,

01:13:01.200 --> 01:13:04.320
it came to the modest sum
of 250,000 euros.

01:13:04.880 --> 01:13:08.920
Which means that at the very end
of the presidential campaign,

01:13:09.080 --> 01:13:13.600
the campaign coffers still contained,
in large denominations,

01:13:13.760 --> 01:13:15.920
250,000 euros in cash.

01:13:16.080 --> 01:13:18.840
That amount should be taken as evidence

01:13:19.000 --> 01:13:21.640
of the massive circulation

01:13:22.120 --> 01:13:24.640
of cash during
the presidential campaign,

01:13:24.800 --> 01:13:28.960
and an indication of what may have been
circulating earlier.

01:13:29.120 --> 01:13:31.280
But where did that money come from?

01:13:32.560 --> 01:13:35.520
Campaign treasurer Eric Woerth
claimed the big denominations

01:13:35.680 --> 01:13:38.800
were from anonymous donations
sent through the post office.

01:13:39.400 --> 01:13:41.560
Where are the bank documents?

01:13:41.720 --> 01:13:42.760
The transfers?

01:13:42.920 --> 01:13:46.400
There are no documents,
no photos, no accounts.

01:13:46.560 --> 01:13:48.480
There's no physical evidence.

01:13:48.640 --> 01:13:50.680
There's only hatred,

01:13:51.000 --> 01:13:52.240
mud,

01:13:52.520 --> 01:13:55.520
mediocrity, spite, and slander.

01:14:01.520 --> 01:14:04.400
The Hidden Friend

01:14:05.680 --> 01:14:08.960
During the official investigation of
the Sarkozy-Gaddafi affair,

01:14:09.200 --> 01:14:12.600
the magistrates discovered that

01:14:13.640 --> 01:14:17.600
Ziad Takieddine had created
an offshore company,

01:14:17.760 --> 01:14:21.240
as they're known,

01:14:21.400 --> 01:14:24.080
that was called Rossfield Limited.

01:14:24.800 --> 01:14:26.920
In February 2006,

01:14:27.080 --> 01:14:30.080
there's a record of a payment

01:14:30.600 --> 01:14:34.640
to an account labelled "Olin".

01:14:35.080 --> 01:14:38.040
O-L-I-N.

01:14:38.800 --> 01:14:41.960
At the same time, in another legal inquiry,

01:14:42.480 --> 01:14:46.080
police were looking into tax fraud

01:14:46.280 --> 01:14:49.000
by a long-time collaborator
and friend of Nicolas Sarkozy,

01:14:49.200 --> 01:14:50.680
Thierry Gaubert.

01:14:51.560 --> 01:14:54.840
In 1988, Nicolas Sarkozy

01:14:55.000 --> 01:14:57.480
officiated at the marriage
of Thierry Gaubert.

01:14:57.640 --> 01:15:00.280
He was a close associate
in Neuilly local government,

01:15:01.200 --> 01:15:05.040
and would later become Sarkozy's deputy
chief of staff at the Budget Ministry.

01:15:06.120 --> 01:15:08.720
Thierry Gaubert, a close friend
of Ziad Takieddine,

01:15:09.280 --> 01:15:11.320
was also implicated
in the Karachi affair

01:15:12.360 --> 01:15:14.800
and sentenced in 2020

01:15:14.960 --> 01:15:16.880
to four years in prison.

01:15:17.600 --> 01:15:19.440
He has appealed the conviction.

01:15:19.960 --> 01:15:25.040
It was revealed that he held several
undeclared accounts abroad,

01:15:25.240 --> 01:15:27.840
in Switzerland and the Bahamas.

01:15:28.840 --> 01:15:31.600
And then I remembered that the village
in Columbia,

01:15:31.760 --> 01:15:34.320
where, in 2011, Karl and I discovered

01:15:34.480 --> 01:15:38.080
Gaubert's sumptuous property
hidden away from the taxman,

01:15:38.280 --> 01:15:41.640
is called Nilo, N-I-L-O.

01:15:41.800 --> 01:15:46.280
Nilo is Olin spelled backwards.

01:15:49.880 --> 01:15:51.600
And then I found a record

01:15:52.240 --> 01:15:54.960
from February 2006

01:15:55.120 --> 01:15:59.320
of a payment of 440,000 euros

01:15:59.640 --> 01:16:03.360
from a company called Rossfield Limited.

01:16:05.600 --> 01:16:07.840
I thought, "This is incredible!"

01:16:08.000 --> 01:16:11.720
It was exactly the same amount,
the same date,

01:16:11.880 --> 01:16:15.040
and the same name
as Ziad Takieddine's company

01:16:15.240 --> 01:16:19.560
that was used to transfer
the Libyan money.

01:16:20.000 --> 01:16:21.440
For the first time,

01:16:21.600 --> 01:16:25.240
we had a bank record
of a financial flow

01:16:25.400 --> 01:16:28.720
that left the Gaddafi dictatorship

01:16:28.880 --> 01:16:33.360
and arrived in the account of someone
close to Nicolas Sarkozy in France.

01:16:33.520 --> 01:16:35.120
It was unequivocal.

01:16:35.320 --> 01:16:37.440
It went from Senussi to Takieddine

01:16:37.600 --> 01:16:40.040
to Thierry Gaubert's account.

01:16:40.240 --> 01:16:42.120
Thierry Gaubert,

01:16:42.840 --> 01:16:46.840
like many others,
wrote little notes in his calendar.

01:16:47.000 --> 01:16:52.080
We noticed that,
a day or two before the transfer,

01:16:52.280 --> 01:16:53.960
he'd written "NS campaign".

01:16:54.120 --> 01:16:57.120
For the investigators and magistrates,
it was like an admission

01:16:57.320 --> 01:17:02.280
that he was also involved
in Nicolas Sarkozy's presidential campaign.

01:17:03.440 --> 01:17:06.320
Note the following comment:
"Ns - campaign"

01:17:06.480 --> 01:17:09.120
Thierry Gaubert claimed he didn't know,
he forgot,

01:17:09.320 --> 01:17:12.920
campaign could mean anything...

01:17:13.080 --> 01:17:16.560
He tried to duck the question
in a ridiculous way,

01:17:16.720 --> 01:17:20.600
since it's hard
to claim that "NS campaign"

01:17:20.760 --> 01:17:23.760
had nothing to do with
Nicolas Sarkozy's campaign.

01:17:23.920 --> 01:17:27.640
Gaubert denied involvement in the campaign.
About the annotation, he said:

01:17:27.800 --> 01:17:31.640
"It's a capital 'N' and lowercase 's',
not capital 'N' capital 'S',

01:17:31.800 --> 01:17:37.800
"so maybe it's not Nicolas Sarkozy.
'Campaign' could mean lots of things."

01:17:39.000 --> 01:17:41.240
So in December 2019,

01:17:41.400 --> 01:17:43.600
we revealed in Mediapart

01:17:43.760 --> 01:17:47.960
the missing link
in the Sarkozy-Gaddafi affair:

01:17:48.120 --> 01:17:50.600
the payment of a half-million euros

01:17:50.760 --> 01:17:54.640
from Senussi to Takieddine
and all the way to Thierry Gaubert.

01:17:57.200 --> 01:18:00.320
The Gaubert-Senussi transfer
in the Libyan affair

01:18:00.480 --> 01:18:02.600
was an event from
the legal point of view,

01:18:02.760 --> 01:18:07.800
since Nicolas Sarkozy, when questioned
in the media a few years earlier,

01:18:07.960 --> 01:18:11.000
had very boastfully asserted

01:18:11.200 --> 01:18:13.800
that "not a single bank transfer
has been uncovered!"

01:18:13.960 --> 01:18:17.320
Where are the bank documents?
Where are the transfers?

01:18:17.480 --> 01:18:21.320
It turns out that there was
at least one bank transfer,

01:18:21.480 --> 01:18:23.200
for 440,000 euros,

01:18:23.360 --> 01:18:26.440
demonstrating the existence of
a financial flow from Libya

01:18:26.600 --> 01:18:29.360
into French pockets,
and not just any pockets,

01:18:29.520 --> 01:18:32.040
but those of Nicolas Sarkozy's
hidden friend.

01:18:34.640 --> 01:18:38.120
"I've had no personal relationship with
Thierry Gaubert since 1996.

01:18:38.320 --> 01:18:40.920
"What I'm telling you
is the absolute truth."

01:18:41.800 --> 01:18:46.120
During searches, investigators found
many elements -

01:18:46.400 --> 01:18:50.360
invitations, lunches, gifts, meetings -

01:18:50.520 --> 01:18:54.680
that in their view attested to
"relational continuity out of proportion"

01:18:54.840 --> 01:18:57.360
to what was claimed
by the former president.

01:18:59.000 --> 01:19:00.960
On March 21, 2018,

01:19:01.200 --> 01:19:03.240
after being held 48 hours
for questioning,

01:19:03.400 --> 01:19:06.920
Nicolas Sarkozy was indicted
in the Libyan affair,

01:19:07.080 --> 01:19:08.280
on charges of corruption,

01:19:08.440 --> 01:19:10.760
receiving embezzled public funds,

01:19:10.920 --> 01:19:14.080
and illicit financing
of an electoral campaign.

01:19:15.040 --> 01:19:16.520
The former head of state

01:19:16.680 --> 01:19:20.280
took the opportunity to denounce
a conspiracy by the judiciary.

01:19:20.560 --> 01:19:24.200
It had been his go-to defense strategy
for several years already.

01:19:26.880 --> 01:19:30.840
Nicolas Sarkozy breaks his silence
in an editorial in tomorrow's Le Figaro.

01:19:31.000 --> 01:19:34.640
The former president,
responding to investigators' accusations,

01:19:34.800 --> 01:19:39.680
compares the surveillance of himself
to Stasi practices in former East Germany.

01:19:40.000 --> 01:19:41.760
The best defense is a good offense.

01:19:41.920 --> 01:19:45.280
Nicolas Sarkozy dips his nib
in exceptionally violent ink.

01:19:45.680 --> 01:19:49.560
"Surveillance worthy
of the East German Stasi and a dictator."

01:19:49.720 --> 01:19:53.200
He presents himself
as wounded and angry...

01:19:58.600 --> 01:20:03.360
Honorary Public Prosecutor
to the Court of Cassation

01:20:03.520 --> 01:20:05.800
It's a constant
among today's politicians,

01:20:06.280 --> 01:20:09.200
and the tactic sometimes pays off.

01:20:09.360 --> 01:20:13.640
It consists of trying to discredit
the proceedings

01:20:13.800 --> 01:20:15.960
by questioning

01:20:16.600 --> 01:20:19.840
the integrity and motives
of the prosecuting attorney.

01:20:20.000 --> 01:20:21.680
I've observed it now for 20 years.

01:20:21.840 --> 01:20:26.280
I felt the situation was serious enough
to tell the French people

01:20:26.440 --> 01:20:28.240
the extent of

01:20:28.400 --> 01:20:32.720
the political instrumentalization
of part of the judicial system.

01:20:33.120 --> 01:20:35.600
Things are being organized,

01:20:35.760 --> 01:20:38.040
and the French people need to know,

01:20:38.560 --> 01:20:41.200
and with full freedom of conscience,

01:20:41.520 --> 01:20:43.000
they need to judge for themselves.

01:20:43.200 --> 01:20:47.960
I believe in the honesty and sincerity
of magistrates

01:20:48.200 --> 01:20:49.560
and public prosecutors.

01:20:49.720 --> 01:20:54.600
I've always believed that a good magistrate
has to be courageous,

01:20:54.760 --> 01:20:58.960
and that courage is an intrinsic virtue
required of a magistrate,

01:20:59.200 --> 01:21:00.640
notably a good one.

01:21:00.800 --> 01:21:05.880
Courage allows you to make decisions

01:21:06.040 --> 01:21:07.640
that may not be popular.

01:21:07.800 --> 01:21:11.440
I've sometimes had to make decisions
that politicians didn't like.

01:21:11.600 --> 01:21:13.240
You do it anyway.

01:21:13.400 --> 01:21:15.720
I am the victim of relentless attack

01:21:15.880 --> 01:21:18.320
and of a justice system instrumentalized

01:21:18.480 --> 01:21:20.760
to destroy me
and keep me out of politics,

01:21:20.920 --> 01:21:24.800
in the same way and at the same time.
The French are no fools, they can see

01:21:24.960 --> 01:21:27.360
that it's all to weaken Nicolas Sarkozy.

01:21:28.120 --> 01:21:32.120
In order to function, democracy needs -

01:21:33.320 --> 01:21:36.760
whether it makes everyone happy or not -
it needs a strong legal system,

01:21:36.920 --> 01:21:38.120
one that's independent,

01:21:38.320 --> 01:21:43.080
that upholds the law
and the principles of the Republic,

01:21:43.280 --> 01:21:45.080
and that protects people's freedom.

01:21:45.280 --> 01:21:47.240
That's what the law is all about.

01:21:47.400 --> 01:21:51.760
When you embody an institution,
particularly at the highest levels,

01:21:51.920 --> 01:21:55.120
that's the state of mind required.

01:21:55.320 --> 01:21:58.360
And myself, as a citizen,

01:21:58.520 --> 01:22:01.360
it's what I expect
from the people I elect.

01:22:01.520 --> 01:22:03.280
What country do we live in

01:22:03.920 --> 01:22:05.840
where a former head of state

01:22:06.240 --> 01:22:08.400
can be subjected for months on end

01:22:08.560 --> 01:22:12.280
to the surveillance
of his most personal conversations?

01:22:12.440 --> 01:22:15.840
Attacks on the legal system
by certain politicians

01:22:16.000 --> 01:22:20.440
discredit the Republic

01:22:20.600 --> 01:22:23.640
and undermine public confidence
in the institution

01:22:23.800 --> 01:22:25.200
and in democracy.

01:22:25.360 --> 01:22:26.760
It's extremely serious.

01:22:26.920 --> 01:22:29.480
It's even more serious
coming from a president

01:22:29.640 --> 01:22:31.720
who is charged, under the constitution,

01:22:31.880 --> 01:22:34.320
with guaranteeing the independence
of the judiciary.

01:22:34.480 --> 01:22:38.320
So he should be the last person
to make such remarks.

01:22:38.840 --> 01:22:40.200
A few years ago,

01:22:40.360 --> 01:22:41.640
the chief appellate judge

01:22:41.800 --> 01:22:43.800
violently took a political stand

01:22:43.960 --> 01:22:45.920
against me.

01:22:46.280 --> 01:22:48.080
Violently and by name.

01:22:48.760 --> 01:22:51.080
Do you consider it normal,
Mr. Toussaint,

01:22:51.280 --> 01:22:54.200
for a judge who judges you
to be a political opponent?

01:22:55.760 --> 01:22:57.680
On October 16, 2020,

01:22:57.840 --> 01:22:59.760
after four days of hearings,

01:23:00.360 --> 01:23:05.000
Nicolas Sarkozy was indicted a second time
in the Libyan financing case,

01:23:05.200 --> 01:23:09.040
on a charge that could deprive him
of his civil rights: criminal conspiracy.

01:23:10.400 --> 01:23:14.840
The new indictment gave rise to the
habitual attacks from his camp

01:23:15.000 --> 01:23:16.240
against the legal system.

01:23:16.400 --> 01:23:19.440
I hear he's in custody for questioning
and think, "Again?"

01:23:20.000 --> 01:23:22.240
I think the case will be dismissed.

01:23:22.400 --> 01:23:23.800
Once again he'll be tarnished,

01:23:23.960 --> 01:23:26.760
but when he's cleared
he'll get just one line in the press.

01:23:26.920 --> 01:23:29.240
It feels like a republic of judges,

01:23:29.760 --> 01:23:32.080
and the judges
want to get Nicolas Sarkozy.

01:23:32.280 --> 01:23:34.840
As I said yesterday,
the national financial crimes office

01:23:35.000 --> 01:23:37.000
is not a prosecutor's office.

01:23:37.200 --> 01:23:39.640
It's a political tool.

01:23:39.800 --> 01:23:41.920
And we need to know
who it's working for.

01:23:44.480 --> 01:23:46.280
And less than a month later,

01:23:46.600 --> 01:23:50.680
the judicial conspiracy theory
suddenly found favor with the media

01:23:51.880 --> 01:23:54.400
thanks to a spectacular turn of events.

01:24:00.760 --> 01:24:03.640
"Save Sarko"

01:24:04.000 --> 01:24:08.720
We're going to show you a document.
Nicolas Sarkozy's main accuser

01:24:08.880 --> 01:24:10.720
has changed his story.

01:24:10.880 --> 01:24:13.240
This video was shot in Beirut

01:24:13.400 --> 01:24:15.720
by Paris-Match and BFMTV.

01:24:15.880 --> 01:24:18.360
Have a look.

01:24:18.600 --> 01:24:23.840
Mr. Sarkozy did not receive Libyan funds
for his presidential campaign,

01:24:24.000 --> 01:24:28.040
and Mr. Gaddafi couldn't have provided them
because he never did that.

01:24:28.640 --> 01:24:30.680
I say that loud and clear.

01:24:31.880 --> 01:24:34.080
The 32-second video,

01:24:34.280 --> 01:24:36.040
filmed beside the marina in Beirut,

01:24:36.240 --> 01:24:39.960
where Ziad Takieddine fled after
being sentenced to five years in jail

01:24:40.200 --> 01:24:41.520
in the Karachi affair,

01:24:41.680 --> 01:24:44.920
was broadcast only on BFMTV,

01:24:45.080 --> 01:24:48.120
accompanied by a long article
in the weekly Paris-Match.

01:24:49.760 --> 01:24:51.760
Judge Tournaire

01:24:52.040 --> 01:24:54.840
wanted to spin it to his own taste

01:24:55.120 --> 01:24:57.200
and have me say things

01:24:57.800 --> 01:25:02.200
totally contrary
to what I've always said.

01:25:02.360 --> 01:25:06.200
There was no financing
of Mr. Sarkozy's presidential campaign.

01:25:07.240 --> 01:25:08.120
Ever.

01:25:08.880 --> 01:25:13.120
There you have Takieddine's
clear statement...

01:25:13.320 --> 01:25:16.080
Contradicting
all of his past statements,

01:25:16.280 --> 01:25:19.560
Ziad Takieddine
exonerated Nicolas Sarkozy

01:25:19.720 --> 01:25:21.560
and accused the legal system
of manipulating him.

01:25:23.480 --> 01:25:25.640
The BFMTV scoop,

01:25:25.800 --> 01:25:29.320
coming less than a month after
Sarkozy's second indictment,

01:25:29.480 --> 01:25:32.080
gave him a miraculous opportunity

01:25:32.280 --> 01:25:34.720
for a new media counter-offensive,

01:25:34.880 --> 01:25:38.280
that started...on BFMTV.

01:25:39.440 --> 01:25:42.480
If there was an investigation
of a former head of state

01:25:43.200 --> 01:25:45.680
based only on Mr. Takieddine's statements...

01:25:45.840 --> 01:25:49.840
- Should there be one of Judge Tournaire?
- That's not for me to decide.

01:25:50.000 --> 01:25:53.600
But neither the media
nor the legal system can accept

01:25:53.760 --> 01:25:57.600
that when Takieddine denounces Sarkozy,
you have to investigate,

01:25:57.760 --> 01:26:00.520
but when Takieddine denounces a judge,

01:26:00.680 --> 01:26:03.840
another judge can say,
24 hours later,

01:26:04.000 --> 01:26:06.640
there's nothing to see, move along,
leave it alone.

01:26:06.960 --> 01:26:07.800
No, Ma'am.

01:26:07.960 --> 01:26:12.840
It wasn't enough for Ziad Takieddine
to retract his statement,

01:26:13.000 --> 01:26:16.560
he also had to accuse the magistrates.

01:26:16.960 --> 01:26:21.880
It's a bit obvious, but it went down well
with Les Républicains,

01:26:22.040 --> 01:26:26.040
and his whole camp was galvanized
by the retraction.

01:26:26.560 --> 01:26:28.000
Have magistrates

01:26:28.200 --> 01:26:31.360
been blinded by a desire for vengeance?

01:26:31.520 --> 01:26:33.880
Or even a certain form of hatred?

01:26:34.600 --> 01:26:37.400
When Mr. Takieddine made an accusation

01:26:37.560 --> 01:26:39.200
against a former head of state,

01:26:40.280 --> 01:26:42.880
an investigation was opened immediately.

01:26:43.040 --> 01:26:46.280
When the same individual,
in the same case,

01:26:46.440 --> 01:26:48.760
made an accusation against a magistrate,

01:26:48.920 --> 01:26:51.360
the response from
the financial prosecutor's office is:

01:26:51.520 --> 01:26:54.040
"Move along! Nothing to see here."

01:26:54.240 --> 01:26:56.200
Of course, at Mediapart,

01:26:56.360 --> 01:26:59.120
Karl Laske and I
were scratching our heads,

01:26:59.320 --> 01:27:01.720
wondering what was behind this event.

01:27:02.200 --> 01:27:04.240
So we started checking.

01:27:04.440 --> 01:27:07.680
What's going on with him in Beirut?

01:27:07.880 --> 01:27:09.000
What is he living on?

01:27:09.200 --> 01:27:13.120
We called all around Beirut to find out
how his life was turning out,

01:27:13.320 --> 01:27:15.040
what his friends and family were saying.

01:27:15.240 --> 01:27:17.920
We quickly discovered
that he was in dire straits.

01:27:18.080 --> 01:27:19.600
He was ruined,

01:27:20.040 --> 01:27:21.840
no home of his own,

01:27:22.000 --> 01:27:25.360
with creditors
and lawyers harassing him,

01:27:25.520 --> 01:27:27.280
demanding money.

01:27:27.440 --> 01:27:28.920
His back was against the wall.

01:27:29.320 --> 01:27:32.200
On that basis,

01:27:32.360 --> 01:27:35.280
we took our curiosity one step further

01:27:35.440 --> 01:27:41.080
and tried to find out how
his retraction happened.

01:27:41.440 --> 01:27:42.960
Who went to Beirut, and so on.

01:27:43.200 --> 01:27:45.560
And indeed we learned

01:27:46.200 --> 01:27:50.960
that a Paris-Match journalist went to
Beirut, but that he wasn't alone.

01:27:51.120 --> 01:27:55.000
In fact, behind
Ziad Takieddine's retraction

01:27:55.200 --> 01:27:59.240
there was a whole cast
of colorful characters,

01:28:00.000 --> 01:28:02.840
foremost among them a businesswoman

01:28:03.000 --> 01:28:08.400
who's also known as
the big cheese of the celebrity press:

01:28:08.800 --> 01:28:12.040
Michèle Marchand,
nicknamed Mimi Marchand.

01:28:12.240 --> 01:28:15.280
She has close ties
throughout French politics.

01:28:15.440 --> 01:28:18.240
She's close with the Macrons,

01:28:18.400 --> 01:28:22.920
but also with the Sarkozys,
Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni,

01:28:23.080 --> 01:28:28.320
whom she'd known as a singer and model
for several decades.

01:28:29.720 --> 01:28:32.320
I'm just a free electron

01:28:32.480 --> 01:28:35.000
who gets asked from time to time

01:28:37.000 --> 01:28:39.600
"What do you think?"
But nothing else!

01:28:39.760 --> 01:28:41.280
It's Mimi Marchand

01:28:41.440 --> 01:28:46.960
who is suspected of heading up
a rather baroque venture

01:28:47.200 --> 01:28:50.040
to convince Ziad Takieddine

01:28:50.240 --> 01:28:53.440
to change his testimony
in the Libyan affair

01:28:53.600 --> 01:28:57.440
in an attempt to clear Nicolas Sarkozy.

01:28:57.800 --> 01:29:03.640
One thing led to another and we gathered
that money had been put on the table,

01:29:04.120 --> 01:29:07.240
that he was promised
the significant sum of 4 million euros,

01:29:07.560 --> 01:29:11.560
and we published two articles

01:29:11.720 --> 01:29:16.120
that contributed to the opening
of a new investigation

01:29:16.320 --> 01:29:19.680
into witness tampering in the case.

01:29:19.840 --> 01:29:21.760
If this were a TV series,

01:29:21.920 --> 01:29:23.800
and I love a good series,

01:29:24.560 --> 01:29:27.000
I'd say the script is implausible.

01:29:27.200 --> 01:29:29.320
Unfortunately, it doesn't make me laugh,

01:29:29.480 --> 01:29:30.600
because it's serious.

01:29:30.760 --> 01:29:32.360
Not just for me,

01:29:32.520 --> 01:29:34.240
not just for my family,

01:29:34.520 --> 01:29:36.960
not just for those who believed in me,

01:29:37.120 --> 01:29:39.240
but for France,

01:29:39.400 --> 01:29:44.840
which is giving the impression that
it's former head of state could be corrupt.

01:29:45.000 --> 01:29:46.600
It's ignominious.

01:29:46.920 --> 01:29:51.360
Professor of economics at Sciences Po Paris
Author of Save the Media

01:29:51.520 --> 01:29:54.120
To organize Takieddine's retraction,

01:29:55.920 --> 01:29:58.600
you have to organize
all the media coverage around it.

01:29:58.760 --> 01:30:01.400
I won't go into the details,

01:30:01.560 --> 01:30:04.480
but it's not just:
"Let's put it on the front page."

01:30:04.640 --> 01:30:08.040
You make it a saga.
You get the right guests, the right forums.

01:30:08.240 --> 01:30:10.240
A lot of work goes into it.

01:30:10.600 --> 01:30:13.240
Behind all that was Mimi Marchand,

01:30:13.400 --> 01:30:16.880
a high-powered press attaché

01:30:17.040 --> 01:30:20.000
who does her job very well,
from that point of view.

01:30:20.520 --> 01:30:22.000
Good evening, Hervé Gattegno.

01:30:22.200 --> 01:30:24.840
You're the managing editor
of Paris-Match,

01:30:25.000 --> 01:30:28.280
which published Ziad Takieddine's
change of position...

01:30:28.440 --> 01:30:31.400
Asked about the background
of the retraction,

01:30:31.560 --> 01:30:35.840
the managing editor of Paris-Match
was not very forthcoming.

01:30:37.640 --> 01:30:39.680
Was he the one who contacted you

01:30:39.840 --> 01:30:42.520
because he wanted
to make the new statement?

01:30:42.680 --> 01:30:44.880
Or did you seek him out

01:30:45.040 --> 01:30:47.320
and convince him to talk to you?

01:30:47.480 --> 01:30:49.480
Neither one, as is often the case.

01:30:49.640 --> 01:30:53.960
I won't tell you all the secrets
of the "making-of" the interview.

01:30:54.200 --> 01:30:56.880
If I did, it would burst
the professional bubble,

01:30:57.480 --> 01:30:59.600
and sources need to be respected.

01:30:59.760 --> 01:31:01.040
But it was neither.

01:31:01.240 --> 01:31:05.000
We met him, he talked.
As you know, Ziad Takieddine

01:31:05.200 --> 01:31:06.640
doesn't need much encouragement.

01:31:07.080 --> 01:31:09.760
It's clear in this Libyan affair

01:31:09.920 --> 01:31:13.520
that the main investigator
was Mediapart.

01:31:13.800 --> 01:31:16.680
Beyond them, unless I'm mistaken,

01:31:16.840 --> 01:31:18.400
there was no cover of Le Point,

01:31:18.560 --> 01:31:19.960
or L'Express,

01:31:20.200 --> 01:31:22.240
or the Nouvel Observateur.

01:31:22.880 --> 01:31:27.440
It did not lead to massive coverage.

01:31:27.840 --> 01:31:29.440
The question is why?

01:31:29.680 --> 01:31:31.480
There are two possible factors,

01:31:31.640 --> 01:31:34.760
probably both at work.

01:31:35.440 --> 01:31:40.480
First, in the competitive media market,
a new actor, Mediapart,

01:31:40.640 --> 01:31:43.360
had done very well
in a short period of time,

01:31:43.520 --> 01:31:45.520
making some of the competition jealous.

01:31:45.680 --> 01:31:50.280
So some of those competitors
maybe didn't want to "help them out",

01:31:50.440 --> 01:31:54.000
and didn't cover it much
since it wasn't their scoop.

01:31:54.600 --> 01:31:55.840
That's a first element.

01:31:56.000 --> 01:31:58.080
And it's doesn't contradict the second.

01:31:58.600 --> 01:32:01.800
Which is that, in the media sector,

01:32:01.960 --> 01:32:04.920
there's a very influential actor,
the Groupe Lagardère,

01:32:05.200 --> 01:32:08.240
and one member of its board of directors

01:32:09.000 --> 01:32:10.320
was Nicolas Sarkozy.

01:32:10.480 --> 01:32:14.960
When you have a former president
sitting on a board

01:32:15.120 --> 01:32:16.800
of a group that owns media outlets,

01:32:18.720 --> 01:32:22.280
and a shareholder of those media

01:32:22.440 --> 01:32:26.480
knows how to intervene
and does so regularly,

01:32:26.640 --> 01:32:32.040
it's not surprising that the story wasn't
making headlines in JDD or Paris-Match.

01:32:32.240 --> 01:32:33.360
Except

01:32:34.200 --> 01:32:38.320
to announce the retraction
of a certain witness.

01:32:38.960 --> 01:32:42.640
The legal investigation obviously
went much further than we could,

01:32:42.800 --> 01:32:48.240
and was able to bring together
the exchanges of all of the protagonists,

01:32:48.400 --> 01:32:50.440
which clearly proved

01:32:50.600 --> 01:32:55.000
that the four million were promised
in writing to Takieddine,

01:32:55.200 --> 01:32:58.720
and that Takieddine
talked for that reason.

01:32:58.880 --> 01:33:01.880
By investigating Michèle Marchand,

01:33:02.040 --> 01:33:06.360
we learned she was in contact
with Carla Bruni,

01:33:06.520 --> 01:33:08.440
Nicolas Sarkozy's wife,

01:33:08.600 --> 01:33:10.640
and that the three discussed
the subject.

01:33:10.800 --> 01:33:14.640
Nicolas Sarkozy was informed
before it was published,

01:33:15.000 --> 01:33:17.960
before the operation went online.

01:33:18.240 --> 01:33:20.920
That makes him a potential accomplice,

01:33:21.080 --> 01:33:23.400
if not the manager
of the whole operation.

01:33:26.520 --> 01:33:28.600
The "Save Sarko" operation

01:33:28.760 --> 01:33:32.080
was investigated by the Paris courts,

01:33:32.280 --> 01:33:35.000
separately from
the Libyan financing investigation.

01:33:35.800 --> 01:33:40.600
The entente that had prevailed among
the main protagonists of the staging

01:33:40.880 --> 01:33:42.560
turned to fisticuffs.

01:33:42.840 --> 01:33:43.960
Hervé Gattegno,

01:33:44.200 --> 01:33:46.880
who denies committing
any criminal offense,

01:33:47.040 --> 01:33:49.280
was not a subject of the investigation.

01:33:49.440 --> 01:33:51.880
Wiretap of Michèle Marchand

01:33:52.040 --> 01:33:53.960
"The deus ex machina was Hervé Gattegno.

01:33:54.120 --> 01:33:55.680
"He planned it, not me.

01:33:55.840 --> 01:33:58.200
"I just carried it out."

01:33:58.880 --> 01:34:02.960
Wiretap between
Arnaud Lagardère and Hervé Gattegno

01:34:03.120 --> 01:34:05.280
Gattegno:
"In one fell swoop we gave it to him,

01:34:05.440 --> 01:34:07.400
"how could he resist?

01:34:07.560 --> 01:34:11.920
"And you know Sarko, he wants to meddle
in everything, he wants to run it."

01:34:12.640 --> 01:34:14.600
Nicolas Sarkozy Hearing
October 10, 2023

01:34:14.760 --> 01:34:16.760
"You could say (Michèle Marchand)
tricked me.

01:34:16.920 --> 01:34:22.200
"If I'd known what she was up to,
my attitude would have been different."

01:34:22.880 --> 01:34:25.920
Michèle Marchand Hearing
November 10, 2023

01:34:26.080 --> 01:34:27.840
"It's not right to say that.

01:34:28.000 --> 01:34:29.520
"It's not right or gracious.

01:34:29.680 --> 01:34:31.200
"But it doesn't matter.

01:34:31.360 --> 01:34:35.080
"We know what
the person who said it is like."

01:34:36.000 --> 01:34:40.200
The Ziad Takieddine retraction affair
became the false retraction affair,

01:34:40.360 --> 01:34:43.040
and it led to the indictment

01:34:43.240 --> 01:34:46.080
of Michèle Marchand
and her presumed accomplices,

01:34:46.280 --> 01:34:48.920
and also of Nicolas Sarkozy,

01:34:49.320 --> 01:34:52.240
who was indicted for criminal conspiracy

01:34:52.400 --> 01:34:55.480
to commit a very specific fraud,

01:34:55.640 --> 01:34:57.840
which is called a "judgement fraud".

01:34:58.000 --> 01:35:01.880
It's an attempt
to manipulate the legal system

01:35:02.040 --> 01:35:04.520
in order to be exonerated

01:35:04.680 --> 01:35:06.800
when you're implicated in a crime.

01:35:07.360 --> 01:35:08.920
The investigation

01:35:09.080 --> 01:35:14.200
also shed light on the close ties
between Nicolas Sarkozy's team,

01:35:14.360 --> 01:35:17.880
the management of BFMTV,
and certain journalists

01:35:18.040 --> 01:35:22.040
who promoted Ziad Takieddine's
false retraction.

01:35:24.080 --> 01:35:28.760
Text exchange, November 11, 2020
Sarkozy's communications officer and BFMTV

01:35:28.920 --> 01:35:30.880
Waché: N.S. could go on with Ruth.

01:35:31.040 --> 01:35:33.520
It hits hard.
N.S.'s reaction on Facebook.

01:35:33.680 --> 01:35:35.480
Fogiel: Great! You'll let me know?

01:35:35.640 --> 01:35:36.960
Waché: Yes, we're on it.

01:35:37.200 --> 01:35:39.600
What broadcast slot looks best to you?

01:35:39.760 --> 01:35:41.840
Fogiel: If he talks to Ruth,
we'll do several.

01:35:42.000 --> 01:35:44.240
So the first broadcast
doesn't matter much,

01:35:44.400 --> 01:35:46.120
but it could be 7pm [...]

01:35:46.320 --> 01:35:49.040
What would your schedule be?

01:35:49.240 --> 01:35:51.200
Text exchange, November 13, 2020
Sarkozy's communications officer and BFMTV

01:35:52.280 --> 01:35:54.560
Elkrief: Are you getting good feedback?

01:35:54.720 --> 01:35:58.680
Waché: Excellent!!! Thank you, dear Ruth!
Decisive broadcast for us.

01:35:58.840 --> 01:36:01.720
Elkrief: I hope so,
from the bottom of my heart.

01:36:03.640 --> 01:36:05.640
Text exchange November 14, 2020
Sarkozy's communications officer and BFMTV

01:36:05.800 --> 01:36:07.000
Fogiel: Good feedback?

01:36:07.200 --> 01:36:08.960
Waché: Fabulous!

01:36:09.120 --> 01:36:10.960
Fogiel: Great!

01:36:11.320 --> 01:36:12.680
Waché: Actually, anytime

01:36:12.840 --> 01:36:18.840
you have to deal with the Libyan affair,
you can quote from it.

01:36:19.200 --> 01:36:23.400
The links between Nicolas Sarkozy
and Arnaud Lagardère

01:36:24.360 --> 01:36:28.840
are far from secret

01:36:29.440 --> 01:36:31.440
because they're not discreet at all.

01:36:31.600 --> 01:36:34.880
That's what's interesting.
It could be a situation

01:36:35.040 --> 01:36:37.640
with a politician

01:36:37.800 --> 01:36:41.040
pulling the strings in the background,
trying to influence things,

01:36:41.240 --> 01:36:43.040
but doing it discreetly.

01:36:44.000 --> 01:36:45.840
But he didn't even see the problem.

01:36:46.080 --> 01:36:48.800
When Lagardère asked Nicolas Sarkozy

01:36:48.960 --> 01:36:50.920
to sit on his board,

01:36:52.040 --> 01:36:53.480
nobody saw a problem.

01:36:53.640 --> 01:36:55.200
It's a big problem.

01:36:55.360 --> 01:36:57.600
You know exactly what you're doing.

01:36:57.760 --> 01:37:01.280
And Nicolas Sarkozy knew very well
why he accepted.

01:37:01.440 --> 01:37:04.760
There are strong links - too strong -

01:37:04.920 --> 01:37:06.720
between the political sphere

01:37:07.240 --> 01:37:08.680
and the media sphere.

01:37:08.840 --> 01:37:10.240
They need to be questioned

01:37:11.000 --> 01:37:13.920
about the conditions they create

01:37:14.080 --> 01:37:17.800
in terms of corruption, favors,

01:37:17.960 --> 01:37:20.320
and unpublished information.

01:37:20.640 --> 01:37:25.280
And we also need to ask ourselves
why we're not more shocked than we are.

01:37:26.320 --> 01:37:27.600
Collectively.

01:37:28.000 --> 01:37:29.560
July 11, 2024

01:37:29.720 --> 01:37:31.720
For the station manager:

01:37:32.240 --> 01:37:34.840
"Move along. Nothing to see here."

01:37:35.000 --> 01:37:36.920
"As always, the station

01:37:37.080 --> 01:37:40.800
"worked with complete independence
and was journalistically irreproachable."

01:37:40.960 --> 01:37:45.200
What's interesting in the case of
Ziad Takieddine's false retraction

01:37:45.360 --> 01:37:48.520
is that Nicolas Sarkozy,
as in the Libyan affair,

01:37:48.680 --> 01:37:51.360
dropped his former partners.

01:37:51.520 --> 01:37:55.200
As he did in the Bismuth case,
in which he was convicted

01:37:55.360 --> 01:37:58.640
and dropped his lawyer,
Thierry Herzog;

01:37:58.800 --> 01:38:01.120
as in the Bygmalion case,
in which he was convicted

01:38:01.320 --> 01:38:03.480
and dropped his campaign team;

01:38:03.640 --> 01:38:06.240
as in the Libyan financing affair

01:38:06.400 --> 01:38:09.280
in which he dropped Brice Hortefeux
and Claude Guéant,

01:38:09.440 --> 01:38:12.440
so he dropped Mimi Marchand,
who was a family friend,

01:38:12.600 --> 01:38:15.120
in particular of his wife Carla Bruni.

01:38:15.320 --> 01:38:17.440
So from case to case,

01:38:17.600 --> 01:38:20.240
we find ourselves with a head of state

01:38:20.680 --> 01:38:23.840
who sometimes seems to
behave like a godfather.

01:38:24.080 --> 01:38:27.000
Like the godfather
of a political mafia who,

01:38:27.200 --> 01:38:30.840
as the judicial flames close in on him,

01:38:31.000 --> 01:38:34.320
is prepared
to cut every tie that binds him

01:38:34.480 --> 01:38:37.280
to his lieutenants,
to those who've been implicated.

01:38:37.680 --> 01:38:38.800
I told the judges:

01:38:38.960 --> 01:38:41.680
"Search for a century if you want,

01:38:41.840 --> 01:38:43.280
"you won't find anything."

01:38:43.440 --> 01:38:44.600
They looked everywhere.

01:38:44.760 --> 01:38:46.320
And why won't they find anything?

01:38:47.880 --> 01:38:49.720
Because there's nothing to find.

01:38:51.520 --> 01:38:54.880
For 14 years, Nicolas Sarkozy and his cabinet
categorically refused

01:38:55.040 --> 01:38:57.960
to answer questions from
Mediapart about the affair.

01:38:58.120 --> 01:39:01.800
Questioned by the magistrates,
Nicolas Sarkozy justified that refusal:

01:39:01.960 --> 01:39:05.040
"I never respond to Mediapart
because they're not journalists.

01:39:05.240 --> 01:39:08.080
"They're political hacks,

01:39:08.280 --> 01:39:10.760
"waging a political war."

01:39:11.960 --> 01:39:14.080
We've been sued

01:39:14.280 --> 01:39:16.200
by Nicolas Sarkozy, Brice Hortefeux,

01:39:16.360 --> 01:39:18.400
Claude Guéant, Ziad Takieddine,

01:39:18.560 --> 01:39:21.080
and by journalists
close to Nicolas Sarkozy.

01:39:21.280 --> 01:39:24.960
We won resoundingly in every case.

01:39:25.200 --> 01:39:29.240
We were never convicted of forgery,
use of forgeries, defamation,

01:39:29.400 --> 01:39:31.560
or infringement on
the presumption of innocence.

01:39:31.720 --> 01:39:33.680
We'll see if the facts we uncovered,

01:39:33.840 --> 01:39:37.400
and those uncovered by the police
and investigating magistrates,

01:39:37.560 --> 01:39:40.080
will meet a definition in the penal code

01:39:40.280 --> 01:39:42.960
that will authorize a court
to convict - or not -

01:39:43.200 --> 01:39:45.880
Nicolas Sarkozy, Brice Hortefeux,
Claude Guéant,

01:39:46.040 --> 01:39:48.920
Alexandre Djouhri, Ziad Takieddine,
Eric Woerth, and the others.

01:39:49.080 --> 01:39:51.920
There are currently 13 defendants

01:39:52.080 --> 01:39:55.000
in the Sarkozy-Gaddafi proceedings.

01:39:55.200 --> 01:39:56.920
Whatever the outcome,

01:39:57.080 --> 01:40:00.840
Mediapart will not change
a single comma

01:40:01.000 --> 01:40:03.080
from the articles it devoted
to this story

01:40:03.280 --> 01:40:05.360
because we have only done our job,

01:40:05.520 --> 01:40:08.200
which is to publish verified facts

01:40:08.360 --> 01:40:10.080
that are of public interest.

01:40:13.200 --> 01:40:16.000
The case known as
the presumed Libyan financing affair

01:40:16.200 --> 01:40:18.520
went to trail
on January 6, 2025.

01:40:18.680 --> 01:40:22.240
Messrs. Alexandre Djouhri, Thierry Gaubert,
Claude Guéant, Brice Hortefeux,

01:40:22.400 --> 01:40:25.600
Bashir Saleh, Nicolas Sarkozy,
Ziad Takieddine, and Eric Woerth,

01:40:25.760 --> 01:40:28.680
along with five others, have been referred
to the Paris Court of Justice

01:40:28.840 --> 01:40:31.920
to stand trial.
They are presumed innocent.

01:40:35.840 --> 01:40:39.720
The chances of factual truth
surviving the onslaught of power

01:40:39.880 --> 01:40:41.760
are very slim indeed;

01:40:41.920 --> 01:40:47.280
it is always in danger
of being maneuvered out of the world

01:40:47.440 --> 01:40:49.920
not only for a time but,
potentially, forever.

01:41:02.400 --> 01:41:04.400
Subtitles: Jennifer Gay

01:41:04.640 --> 01:41:06.640
Subtliting: Média Solution