Police raid Sarkozy premises

French police searched the home and offices of Nicolas Sarkozy on Tuesday as part of an investigation into allegations of illegal financing of the former president's campaign, leading up to his 2007 election victory.

Investigating magistrate Jean-Michel Gentil was joined by around 10 police officers on Sarkozy's home and recently rented offices in Paris.

The long-standing suspicions of wrongdoing involves France's richest woman, Liliane Bettencourt, who is the heiress to the L'Oreal cosmetics empire.

Back in 2010, one of Bettencourt's accountants said that she had given a Sarkozy aide 50,000 euros ($63,000) in cash to help finance his campaign. That is more than 10 times the legal limit for individual political donations in France.

Witnesses cited in the French media also claim Sarkozy himself had meetings in the Bettencourt home on at least two separate occasions during the 2007 campaign.

Sarkozy's lawyer, Thomas Herzog, said the former president's diary had been made available to investigators and that this would prove that these reports were “materially impossible.”

Sarkozy, whose immunity from prosecution expired last month following his defeat in the last election to Socialist challenger Francois Hollande, has denied any wrongdoing.

Sarkozy was not present during Tuesday's raids. Herzog said he was currently in Canada with his family.

pfd/ng (AP, AFP)