Villepin berates Sarkozy's style

As interior minister and prime minister, the pair were bitter rivals

The former French Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, has launched a virulent attack on French President Nicolas Sarkozy's style of government.

In a radio interview, Mr de Villepin warned that France could not progress when its leader is surrounded by "shoe-shiners, yes-men and courtiers".

"People sometimes confuse power and glory," Mr de Villepin said.

The two men were previously bitter rivals for the ruling UMP Party's presidential nomination.

During the interview with Radio France Inter, Dominique de Villepin declared a "dangerous virus" was sweeping through the French president's team of advisers.

Mr de Villepin accused him of cultivating a court of fawning "yes-men", fostering what he termed a "court-like mentality" at the Elysee Palace.

He said that he wished "Nicolas Sarkozy's friends were able to speak up to him, [to] give him an alternative view".

'Bourgeois'

Mr de Villepin also expressed his astonishment at a recent book written by a French playwright who followed Mr Sarkozy in the run-up to the presidential elections, and who portrayed him as power-crazed.

He warned that power should be held accountable and vowed to act as the government's conscience.

Mr Sarkozy has been criticised by the left-wing opposition for centralising power around himself and a close team of advisors, making announcements in place of top ministers and repeatedly slapping them down when they are seen as straying off-message.

We are the country of Moliere... The Bourgeois Gentleman is a play which must be seen and seen again Dominique de Villepin

Mr de Villepin drew a link between Sarkozy's attitude and the 17th-century Moliere play "The Bourgeois Gentleman", the tale of a boorish, self-centred nouveau-riche who makes himself ridiculous by trying to become an aristocrat.

"We need to move ahead with our eyes open," he said, pointing at France's economic difficulties - with a growth forecast for 2007 far lower than expected.

Smear allegations

Mr de Villepin faces possible charges over the so-called Clearstream affair, an attempt to smear Mr Sarkozy in the years before he became president.

He repeated on Wednesday that the Clearstream affair had been made to look like a political plot in which he had been out to get Mr Sarkozy, but was in reality a far more complex industrial and defence affair.

The former prime minister ordered an investigation in 2004 into faked documents that falsely suggested Sarkozy had laundered bribes from the sale of French frigates to Taiwan, via accounts at Luxembourg-based bank Clearstream.

At the time, the pair were rivals for the forthcoming ruling party nomination in the presidential race.