France - Clearstream - French for Watergate?

This is interesting. I don't think I've heard about this from the BBC.

UPDATE

Much more from The Times (UK) here and here.

Here's what it's all about in a nutshell.

The cause of its current troubles is a dirty tricks row involving France’s three most prominent politicians. The claim that Dominique de Villepin, the Prime Minister, instructed a senior intelligence officer to investigate bribery claims against Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior Minister and his presidential rival on the Right, is combustible. That he did so on the alleged prompting of Jacques Chirac is doubly explosive. A broad British parallel would involve Mr Blair prodding Charles Clarke to get MI5 to investigate the activities of Gordon Brown.

Found this buried on the BBC website. Maybe it was on the frontpage yesterday and I missed it.
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