Robert Bourgi reopens the wounds of Françafrique and settles accounts in broad daylight with Dominique de Villepin. In an interview given to Parisian this Saturday, the former unofficial advisor to the Élysée under Jacques Chirac implicated the ex-Prime Minister, whom he accused of having been informed of expensive gifts and involved, according to him, in occult circuits linking several African leaders to Paris. The Franco-Lebanese, born in Dakar, said he wanted “relieve one’s conscience”while assuming to seek to slow down a possible candidacy of the former Prime Minister for the 2027 presidential election.
The affair was revived by the show Further investigationbroadcast on April 30 on France 2. Robert Bourgi claimed to have given Dominique de Villepin two statuettes of Napoleon in 2002 and 2003. One was allegedly offered by the former Burkinabé president Blaise Compaoré for 75,000 euros, the other by an Italian industrialist for 50,000 euros. Dominique de Villepin admitted to owning these objects, but claimed not to have known their precise origin and today minimizes their value. A version contested by Bourgi: “Dominique cannot deny the origin of these objects. »
“The Achilles heel of Dominique de Villepin is money, luxury, ease”
Robert Bourgi also claimed to have been responsible, between 1997 and 2005, for managing the “gestures of friendship” of African heads of state towards Jacques Chirac. He mentioned “a dozen, even fifteen” of money remittances, for a total amount estimated at around 50 million euros. According to him, Dominique de Villepin, then secretary general of the Élysée then minister of Foreign Affairs, was his direct interlocutor. “The Achilles heel of Dominique de Villepin is money, luxury, ease”he asserted.
He also returned to an episode already recounted in his book They know that I know everything : the alleged delivery, in November 2001, of $3 million hidden in four djembes from Burkina Faso. He claimed that Dominique de Villepin would have gone down to the courtyard of the Élysée to help transport the instruments to his office. These alleged facts are now time-barred and have not given rise to any conviction.
On the side of Dominique de Villepin, those around him denounced a political maneuver. Asked by The Parisianthose close to him evoke the influence of Nicolas Sarkozy, of whom Robert Bourgi would, according to them, “the old and faithful relay”accustomed to “changing stories” and to “twisted blows”. They recalled that a preliminary investigation opened in 2011 into possible secret transactions between the Élysée and African countries had been closed without further action. Robert Bourgi rejected any instrumentalization: “I am not remotely controlled, neither by Nicolas nor by anyone. I settle my accounts myself. »
