Sarkozy talks of conspiracy

French President Nicolas Sarkozy refuted all allegations that he avoided taxes and accepted illegal party donations in connection with the Bettencourt affair in a television interview on Monday. The liberal-conservative daily Corriere della Sera finds his version according to which the whole affair is a smear campaign engineered by his opponents quite plausible: "The upcoming presidential election campaign allows for conspiracy theories that could have been spun by his own camp. The history of the French conservatives doesn't preclude such a scenario. ... The sparkle of times gone by can't be restored in the course of a sultry summer evening on the terrace of the governmental palace, but Sarkozy has often performed best when he has been forced into a corner from all sides. If the suspicions prove false the Bettencourt case could backfire on the website that made it public and the press that spread it."

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