Edouard Balladur is currently on trial for suspicion of secret financing of his 1995 presidential campaign. On Wednesday, the former Prime Minister denounced a dossier "based on approximations, reconciliations, coincidences, assumptions". 

"Nothing will have been spared".

Tried in Paris for suspicion of secret financing of his 1995 presidential campaign, Edouard Balladur denounced at length on Wednesday a dossier built on "rumors" and "false" accusations.

The day before, at the end of the long summary of the sprawling "Karachi affair" by the Court of Justice of the Republic, the former Prime Minister had warned: "I will have a lot of things to say". 

"It's never just about rumors"

At the resumption of the hearing Wednesday afternoon, he takes the floor to deny any responsibility in a system of illegal retrocommissions linked to major arms contracts with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.       

In this affair, brought to light on the sidelines of the investigation into the Karachi attack in 2002, "it is never a question of rumors", calmly affirms Edouard Balladur, dark suit and purple tie.

The former tenant of Matignon, 91, had slowly advanced towards the center of the courtroom, where he appears alongside his former Minister of Defense François Léotard, 78.

According to the prosecution, Balladur was, with the complicity of the latter, "the great architect" of this system of hidden financing which would have served to partially fund his campaign accounts and resulted in June in the convictions of their relatives in the non-ministerial part of the file.

He denounces "approximations"

Rather than "evidence", he sweeps, "this file is based on approximations, comparisons, coincidences, assumptions".

"With such procedures, we could condemn anyone," says Edouard Balladur, his mask placed next to his notes on the desk. 

Heard after him, François Léotard follows, in another style, the same line.

"No relationship" between the financing of the campaign and the arms contracts, sweeps the former minister, black jeans and navy sweater.

To President Dominique Pauthe who launches into an explanation of the commission system, he launches: "It is groceries that you describe, and I am not a grocer". 

"During this time there was Rwanda (...), Bosnia", he says.

The commissions, "I didn't take care of that".

As a minister, "I only deal with heavy business." 

"Nothing will have been spared"

Edouard Balladur, for his part, describes at length this affair "out of the ordinary" by its duration - "my trial has been open for more than twenty-five years in public opinion" -, and its "violence": " 'will have been spared ".

He recalls that his campaign accounts were validated (in extremis) by the Constitutional Council, despite a disputed payment of 10.25 million francs (about 1.5 million euros) in cash, three days after his defeat in the first presidential tower. 

"Donations from collections made during campaign meetings," he still argues in court.

For investigators, this sum corresponds to that recovered a few days earlier in Geneva through Ziad Takkiedine, sentenced in June in the non-ministerial section. 

In the armament contracts, insists Edouard Balladur, "my only role was to decide if their signature was compatible with the national interest", in connection with the President of the Republic François Mitterrand.

In a case led by investigating judges with "proven incompetence", "it is said that I could not not have known (...). Would I have the obligation to know everything and to intervene everywhere? "

The investigation into the attack is still ongoing

He then returns to the Karachi attack: it was during the investigation of this attack, in which 11 French people working on the construction of submarines died, that the suspicions of retrocommissions emerged. 

The investigation had initially favored the track of Al-Qaeda before exploring the possible links - not supported to date - between the attack and the end of the payment of commissions after the election of Jacques Chirac.

The investigation, still ongoing, would study the Islamist track again, according to a late 2019 intelligence note. 

"No one doubts my responsibility anymore", "it has become a historical truth", regrets Edouard Balladur.

"Twenty years after this attack, justice still does not know more about its causes and perpetrators. It is dramatic."

"The financing of my campaign has no connection with the attack in Karachi," he insisted.