For those wondering about Guelfi/PoS/Mafia/Elf Aquitaine connections (IF any): Minister's Mistress Cites Kickbacks PARIS (AP) -- The former mistress of one of France's most powerful men this week turned anew against her one-time paramour, claiming he was the beneficiary of a posh Paris apartment bought with kickback funds from the oil giant Elf Aquitaine. The allegation, disclosed Friday by the French media, prompted the prosecutor's office to seek to reopen the 1 1/2-year-old investigation targeting former Foreign Minister Roland Dumas, now president of France's Constitutional Council. The claims by Christine Deviers-Joncour also returned the case to French headlines and renewed pressure on Dumas to resign from his post on the nation's top judicial body. As president of the Constitutional Council, Dumas is the fifth-ranking man in the state hierarchy. Deviers-Joncour, a former employee of the then state-owned oil company, made the claim Wednesday before two investigating judges, who alone can decide whether the investigation, closed in February, should be reopened. It was the second time this month that Deviers-Joncour has targeted Dumas, placed under formal investigation in April 1998 for ``complicity and illegally receiving company funds'' from Elf between 1989 and 1992. Deviers-Joncour was allegedly hired by Elf to assure a direct line between the oil company and the Foreign Ministry. The kickback scandal contributes to a portrait of the oil company as an apparatus of the French power structure. The investigation shows that Deviers-Joncour, also among those under investigation, got a total of $10 million from Elf. ``I deny everything,'' Dumas said Friday on French radio, saying Deviers- Joncour's latest account was ``out of a novel by a pathological liar.'' Dumas also refused to resign. Earlier this month, Deviers-Joncour told investigators she had given Dumas a dozen Greek statuettes, paid for with $50,000 provided by a former executive at the then-state-owned Elf. Dumas acknowledged receiving the statues, but denied knowing the source of the money. In October, Deviers-Joncour published a book titled ``The Whore of the Republic,'' giving her account of the multi-million-dollar kickback scheme and detailing her relationship with the former foreign minister. But the book did not formally link Dumas with Elf kickback money. In her latest account before Investigating Magistrates Eva Joly and Laurence Vichnievsky, Deviers-Joncour claimed that Dumas used his influence to get Loik Le Floch-Prigent named president of Elf in 1989 -- in exchange for a promise of a prestigious Paris flat. Deviers-Joncour had earlier said the $3 million apartment was bought in 1992 for Elf's No. 2 man, Alfred Sirvan -- who has fled. Deviers-Joncour lived in the apartment until December. Dumas is also accused of using his influence as foreign minister to arrange the sale of six frigates to Taiwan, for which Elf hired Deviers-Joncour as a company representative.
