Paris - A book published on Wednesday accuses French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner of using his position as head of a public health organization to carry out high-paying consulting activities in Africa for private companies.

The book, The World According to K, by journalist Pierre Pean, alleges that from 2002 to 2007 Kouchner represented two private health consulting firms in Africa while at the same time heading the association Esther, the aim of which was to increase international hospital cooperation.

Pean writes that the two private companies, Africa Steps and Imeda, won contracts totalling 4.6 million euros (6 million dollars) from the presidents of Gabon and Congo, Omar Bongo Odimbo and Denis Sassou Nguesso, to help them reform their public health care systems.

Pean charges that a part of the money owed by the government of Gabon was paid after Kouchner became foreign minister on May 18, 2007.

None of these activities is illegal, but they threaten to tarnish the reputation of France's most popular politician and a man known throughout the world for his humanitarian work, particularly through the aid organization he founded, Doctors Without Borders.

In an interview published Wednesday on the online edition of the weekly Le Nouvel Observateur, Kouchner refuted all the charges in the book.

"I have always acted legally and transparently, declared my income, paid my taxes," Kouchner said. "I never signed a single contract with an African country. Never."

Kouchner said he was proud of the results of his work as a health care consultant.

"Is there something shocking in a former health minister... writing reports enabling African countries to improve their health care systems?" he said. "For this work I was paid less than what consultants for the World Bank or the World Health Organization were paid as a rule at the time."

Kouchner said for a period of three years, he received a salary of "6,000 euros per month, after taxes" for his consultancy work in Africa. He said the book was part of a campaign to destabilize him.

Publication of extracts from the book in the weekly Marianne have already caused a stir in Paris, with members of the governing Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) and opposition Socialists urging Kouchner to respond to the allegations.

Socialist law maker Arnaud Montebourg said that, if true, the allegations "constitute, at the least, serious infractions against public morality ... (and) damage the honesty of the Republic, the image of the selflessness of human rights workers and, more seriously, the international image of France."

A member of the Socialist Party, Kouchner alienated many of his political friends and allies by supporting the American invasion of Iraq and then accepting the post of foreign minister in the conservative government of President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Jean-Francois Cope, head of the parliamentary faction of the UMP, charged that the book was an attempt by the Socialists "to settle accounts" with Kouchner.

However, some media are suggesting that Kouchner's job may be on the line. The Swiss daily La Tribune de Geneve reported Wednesday that, according to diplomatic sources, he could eventually be replaced by another Socialist, former foreign minister Hubert Vedrine. (dpa)