Dumas denies mistress's claim

The former foreign minister of France, Mr Roland Dumas (78), fought an uphill battle at his corruption trial yesterday after his former mistress, Ms Christine Deviers-Joncour, incriminated him in testimony on Monday.

It was Mr Dumas, Ms Deviers-Joncour claimed, who reminded an executive at the state-owned oil company Elf-Aquitaine of a promise to provide "a golden key to shelter their love". Mr Dumas knew that the Ffr17 million she spent on a vast apartment in the most expensive neighbourhood of Paris came from Elf, she added.

So who will the judges believe - the silver-tongued lawyer and former foreign minister or the kept woman who has several times changed her story?

Mr Dumas began his defence yesterday by telling the court how important he was. In February 1992, when his mistress was flat-hunting and raking in millions for trying to persuade Mr Dumas to approve an arms sale to Taiwan, Mr Dumas was in Oman with his close friend, President Mitterrand.

He had to rush back to Paris, and then to Jerusalem and Damascus, after a Palestinian extremist was allowed to enter France. There were Security Council meetings in New York, Maastricht Treaty meetings in Holland.

"I woke up in the morning without knowing where I was, and you're asking me if I wondered where Mme Deviers-Joncour got the money to buy her apartment in the rue de Lille." Mr Dumas told the judge. "The answer is `no'."

But the concierge and the inhabitants of the first-floor flat saw Mr Dumas visit it several times before the sale was completed. Mr Dumas dismissed this as fantasy.

As for the concerts and dinner parties for 20 people which Ms Deviers-Joncour held two or three times a month until 1997 - where Mr Dumas was always the guest of honour, and to which his closest friends were invited - why he was simply trying to help an old friend for whom his affection had waned.

Ms Deviers-Joncour claims she fulfilled her "job" of lobbying Mr Dumas to approve the sale of Ffr6 billion worth of frigates to Taiwan. Mr Dumas eventually approved the sale, but claimed he was not influenced by his mistress.