Paris (AFP)

Secret funds, millions in cash and sale of T-shirts: the trial of the financial aspect of the Karachi affair began on Tuesday a vertiginous dive into political financing practices.

It was "a quarter of a century ago" are fond of reminding the defendants, so the memories are sometimes foggy. But they are formal on one point: there was no funding for the 1995 Edouard Balladur unfortunate presidential campaign via illegal retrocommissions on the sidelines of weapons contracts with Saudi Arabia (Sawari II) and the Pakistan (Agosta).

The accusation was served by the words of an intermediary, Ziad Takieddine, who claimed to have given 6 million francs (less than a million euros) at the request of the director of the campaign Balladur, but has since declined .

It was therefore rather relaxed that came to the bar Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, then the closest adviser to the Minister of Defense François Léotard, then Nicolas Bazire, at the time campaign director Edouard Balladur.

The first, mobilized to succeed in selling French submarines and frigates, first tried to convince of the "usefulness of the network K", intermediaries intervened late in the negotiations, and in particular of the businessman Ziad Takieddine.

Things get tough when President Christine Mée discusses the financing of the Balladur campaign. The magistrate indicates that Ziad Takieddine had affirmed, before changing version, to have handed him 250,000 francs. Mr. Donnedieu de Vabres refutes categorically "never having received money from Mr. Takieddine", nor for work in one of his houses, nor for his campaign.

It is then a question of the accounts of the Republican Party, chaired by Mr. Léotard and support of the candidate Balladur. The President recalls that on 5 June 1996 Mr Donnedieu de Vabres deposited 5 million francs in cash in the account of an Italian investment fund, known as the Fondo.

What was "the origin of these funds?", Wants to know the president who tracks traces of possible retrocommissions.

- "The work of the treasurer" -

The former minister said the money was "a reliquat of special funds Matignon" secret funds that would allow to guarantee a loan from the Republican Party for the purchase of premises.

He launches into long explanations on the distribution of these "secret but legal funds", between Matignon, the DGSE and the ministries. "That figure of 5 million was the reserve the Republican Party had."

But, reacts the president, these sums are not they allocated to the ministry, "devolved to the political life", rather than to the minister and his political party? "Maybe it's good that it stopped (the use of secret funds, ed), but at the time, it was the custom and tradition," says the former advisor who was convicted in 2004 for money laundering in this fictitious loan deal.

To Nicolas Bazire, the President will notably talk about the payment of 10.25 million francs in cash on the campaign account of Mr. Balladur on April 26, 1995, after his defeat.

"I never took care of the accounts, it was the work of the treasurer," he replies, adding, "I was informed once of the increase in spending, but no one alerted me to the recipes ".

The president insists, recalls that the treasurer claims to have paid only 3 million April 26 and asks where the remaining 7 million, "appeared by a miracle"?

If he concedes that the explanation given at the time of revenue from sales of T-shirts and caps was "a bit short", the former campaign manager has no information to deliver.

Did not these 10 million "come to plug a hole" in the accounts, insists the president who notes the coincidence between this payment and a withdrawal almost equivalent on 7 April on a Swiss account used by the network K.

In vain. Bazire, who has since joined the LVMH luxury group, has "never heard of any funding issues in the campaign". Campaign whose accounts, criticized, were finally validated, must recognize the president.

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