Elf Wife Was 'dumped' on Orders

Another sordid layer of the Elf affair, France's biggest postwar financial and political scandal, has been exposed after the former wife of the wealthy oil company's chairman - now convicted of corruption - claimed her husband was forced to quit her home immediately on the orders of the late President François Mitterrand.

Fatima Belaïd's claim coincided with the sudden illness of her ex-husband, Loïk Le Floch-Prigent, which has delayed his appeal against a six-month jail sentence. Among other casualties of a vast affair involving thousands of millions of pounds of illicit dealings was a former Foreign Minister, Roland Dumas, and his girlfriend, Christine Deviers-Joncour, who are also awaiting appeals against jail terms.

Belaïd, 47, has subtitled a book she has just finished on the Elf empire, Une épouse très encombrante (A Very Troublesome Wife), alleging that Mitterrand and Dumas were involved in moves to destroy her marriage, although her husband was 'madly in love'.

The whole Elf affair, in which 42 people in the Mitterrand-Le Floch-Prigent entourage have been accused of international corruption to expand the oil empire or to buy political influence, is about to be revived. A Paris appeal court is faced with reviewing 300 volumes of evidence gathered during more than 10 years of investigation.

But the opening has been postponed until May after Le Floch-Prigent, who was freed pending his appeal and works as an international oil consultant, fell ill in Beirut.

Already seriously affected by months of custody in Paris's La Santé prison, Le Floch-Prigent is said to be suffering from 'extreme psoriasis', put down partly to emotional problems that could worsen with his ex-wife's allegations that he dumped her overnight to keep the country's most influential job and the president's esteem.

When they met in 1989, the bearded businessman and his German-Algerian wife were the darlings of the popular press. Their intense social life, which included flights around the world in a private jet to meet national leaders, was often illustrated by photographs in which Le Floch-Prigent appeared infatuated with Belaïd, whom he left without warning only two years later, after a much-publicised wedding.

'I had returned from visiting a friend only to find that Loïk had moved out of the flat without leaving any explanation and refused to talk to me when I telephoned his office,' she said. 'I couldn't believe it. He was madly in love and we did everything together.'

Within days, she was also physically removed from her office as president of the Elf Foundation, a charity set up for her, but which was seen as a rival for a humanitarian association run by Danielle Mitterrand, the president's wife.

According to Belaïd, the Elf chairman considered Mitterrand as his 'spiritual father' and the real boss of the oil company, which was used by the President's office as a secret fund to buy influence in Africa and eastern Europe.

Just before her husband left her, Belaïd was warned by his right-hand man, Alfred Sirven, who has also appealed against a jail term for his part in illicit financial operations, that Mitterrand was worried that she was constantly present during her husband's official trips.

Sirven allegedly told her that the presidency 'trembled with fear' over her presence during meetings with African heads of state who received payments through Elf's special funds, and that she knew too much about the firm's secret affairs.

'My modest social background and my Arab origins also played against me,' she added. 'I was often snubbed by people who felt I was not in my right place.'

Eventually she was summoned to a private dinner with Mitterrand, his wife and Dumas, then Foreign Minister, at which no one spoke to her. It was soon after this outing that her husband 'brutally' left her.

'Mitterrand had such a hold over Loïk that he would accept anything the President asked,' she added. 'When it came to a choice, my husband preferred his job, with all the trappings of influence and power, to his family.'

In the aftermath, she was the subject of a judicial investigation into corruption which is still going on, but negotiated a £1.8 million divorce settlement, allegedly paid out of Elf's funds.

'I would probably never have written this book if my husband hadn't written one last year in which he described me as "the worst error of his life" and accused me of blackmailing the company to obtain the divorce settlement,' Belaïd said.

'I have been the subject of rumour and lies for years, and now the truth is out in the open.'