<div><p>Former French prime minister Dominique de Villepin has been ordered to appear in court in connection with an alleged smear campaign that targeted President Nicolas Sarkozy, sources close to the case said Tuesday.</p><p> "Nothing can justify this decision..." Villepin said, reacting to the order, in a statement received by AFP.</p><p>"Throughout the investigation, the truth of the facts and the law have been diverted for the benefit of one civil party who is at the same time today President of the Republic (Sarkozy)," said Villepin.</p><p>The order drawn up by judges Jean-Marie d'Huy and Henri Pons was signed on Tuesday evening requiring Villepin to appear before the court over alleged "complicity" in slander, the sources said.</p><p>Villepin is suspected of helping to orchestrate a leak in 2004 of what turned out to be a faked list of account-holders at the Clearstream bank in Luxembourg which included Sarkozy's name.</p><p>The named individuals were supposed to have benefited from illegal commissions from arms sales.</p><p>At the time, Villepin and Sarkozy were rivals to succeed then president Jacques Chirac.</p><p>The former premier has been under investigation since July 2007 over the affair.</p><p>Sarkozy has declared himself a civil plaintiff in the case, arguing he was the victim of a plot to derail his bid for the presidency.</p><p> Villepin accuses Sarkozy of manipulating the Clearstream affair to cast himself as its victim.</p><p>Since leaving office in May last year, Villepin has emerged as an outspoken opponent of Sarkozy, with whom he has always had tense relations.</p><p>A former Chirac protege, Villepin launched a scathing attack on Sarkozy in September last year, accusing him of surrounding himself with sycophants instead of independent thinkers.</p><p>Villepin, a 55-year-old former diplomat, became foreign minister after Chirac's 2002 re-election and his accomplished performance at the United Nations the next year denouncing US war aims in Iraq won him recognition around the world.</p><p>He won the rare distinction of being applauded in the United Nations Security Council after an address warning of the risks of war.</p><p>Villepin was appointed prime minister in mid-2005 in the wake of the debacle over France's rejection of the EU constitution.</p><p>His handling of the issue earned him a reputation as a "social" reformer compared to his abrasively right-wing rival, Sarkozy.</p><p>But Villepin ran into trouble with his First Employment Contract (CPE) -- an attempt to prise open the youth labour market by lowering levels of job protection -- which brought students into the streets in 2006.</p><p>Villepin is also an acknowledged poet -- he has published several anthologies as well as political essays and a study of Napoleon Bonaparte -- but his air of aesthetic superiority has won as many enemies as admirers.</p><img src="http://admatch-syndication.mochila.com/images/ad.gif?aid=37274037&bid=informcom" /></div><div id="copyright"><div>

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