Nicolas Sarkozy faces questioning in raft of investigations as immunity ends

Boi-oi-oi-oing!  Someone's post-Presidential calendar's already filling up!  The Telegraph UK.  Excerpts:

Nicolas Sarkozy could face questioning in a raft of party financing and corruption cases when he leaves the Elysée next week and loses his presidential immunity.

..
..The outgoing president could soon be called for questioning – either as a witness or potentially as a suspect – in several corruption cases when he loses presidential immunity a month after leaving office on May 15.



Judges are likely to want to summon him over an investigation into who ordered French intelligence to unlawfully seek to uncover the source of journalists working for Le Monde. France's intelligence chief is currently under investigation over the affair in which Le Monde exposed embarrassing links between Mr Sarkozy's government and Liliane Bettencourt, the l'Oréal billionaire caught up in a tax evasion and illegal party financing inquiry.
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Another case in which Mr Sarkozy's name has cropped up is the so-called "Karachi affair", a complex investigation into alleged kickbacks on arms contracts.



Judges are looking into irregularities in the financing of former Prime Minister Edouard Balladur's 1995 presidential campaign. Mr Sarkozy was Mr Balladur's campaign spokesman and budget minister at the time.


Magistrates suspect the Balladur camp of receiving illicit "retro-commissions" from the sale of French submarines to Pakistan. Mr Sarkozy's best man and former ministerial cabinet chief are both under formal investigation over the affair.
Plus!:
The most recent corruption allegation to be levelled against him is that he received 50 million euros of illegal campaign contributions from the late Muammar Gaddafi. (Sweet!  This should really play well for his image, yeah?)



Last month, investigative news website Mediapart published what it said was a copy of a document signed by Moussa Koussa, Col Gaddafi's intelligence chief in 2006 outlining the alleged funding deal. Mr Sarkozy has dismissed it as a forgery.


Saif-Al Islam Gaddafi, Gaddafi's son and former heir, last year unambiguously claimed that Libya had funded Mr Sarkozy's election.

Sarko!  You've got some 'splainin' to do!

First Official Greek Exit Polls: Pro-Bailout Parties Plunge; Anti-Bailout Radical Left, Neo-Nazis Soar

For Greece:  Shit just got real.  Without a bailout, Greece's economy implodes.  Then what?  Can a bunch of crazy Neo-Nazis and Leftists really find common ground opposing the E.U./German bailout, and maybe, even a little romance..?  Zero Hedge.  Excerpts:

As we expected, the previous unofficial poll forecasts were total rubbish, and according to exit polls from NET TV, the results are as follows:



•New Democracy: 17-20%


•Pasok: 14-17%


•In a stunner, Syrizia, or the coalition of the radical left - a vehement anti-Bailout party - gets more votes than the ruling PASOK party: 15.5%-18.5%


•Independent Greeks: 10-12%


•Finally, and not surprisingly in the aftermath of the French results, the ultra right Golden Dawn gets 6-8% of the vote and will make it into Parliament.
..
Tallied across, up to 60% of the new parliament will be anti-bailout (at least according to exit polls), and hence "Domino toppling." Good luck with that pro-bailout coalition government. Needless to say these results are very ugly and make any prospect of a pro-bailout coalition cabinet virtually impossible. Suddenly the fate of the European experiment is in the hands of the ultra right and the far left - yup, Neo-Nazis will determine the future of Europe. How quaint... again - congratulations Europe.

Meanwhile, in Germany..
And just to confirm that the world is losing it, in the Schleswig-Holstein election, according to ARD, after the CDU (with 30.5%), SPD with 29.5%, Green Party with 14%, and FDP with 8.5%, we get... the Pirate Party 8%.



So Neo-Nazis in Greece, Pirates in Germany: the world has officially lost it.
And in France?

French hope for change as ‘Mr. Normal’ defeats ‘President of the Rich’  Raw Story.  Excerpts:


François Hollande has won the presidency of France, turning the tide on a rightwards and xenophobic lurch in European politics and vowing to transform Europe’s handling of the economic crisis by fighting back against German-led austerity measures.



The 57-year-old rural MP and self-styled Mr Normal, a moderate social democrat from the centre of the Socialist party, is France’s first left wing president for 17 years. Projections from early counts, released by French television, put him on 51.9% and Nicolas Sarkozy on 48.1%.


His emphatic victory is a boost to the left in a continent that has gradually swung right since the economic crisis broke four years ago.
And:
The defeat of the most unpopular French president ever to run for re-election was not simply the result of the global financial crisis or eurozone debt turmoil. It was also down to the intense public dislike of the man seen as “President of the Rich” who had swept to victory in 2007 with a huge mandate to change France. Most French people felt he had failed to deliver his promises, and he was criticised for his ostentatious display of wealth, favouring the rich and leaving behind him more than 2.8 million unemployed. Political analysts said anti-Sarkozyism had become a cultural phenomenon in France. The turnout was high, estimated at around 80%.

 
The world wide markets should be reacting shortly.  Greece has killed their bailout.  The French threw out bailout enabler Sarkozy.  Like it or not, Change will follow shortly throughout Europe, that is for sure.. 
 
CBC resumes live coverage 3 a.m. Central.  It's gonna be a "newsy" week..