Paris, Nov. 19 : Former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin is to stand trial over an alleged smear campaign that he launched against Nicolas Sarkozy before he became the President of France.

De Villepin has been ordered to stand trial in a criminal court, reports The Telegraph.

De Villepin is accused of orchestrating the leak in 2004 of a faked list of account-holders at the Clearstream bank in Luxembourg, which included Sarkozy''s name.

The names were supposed to have benefited from illegal commissions from arms sales.

London, Nov 17: French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s supporters, who are worried about his inclination towards socialism, believe that his glamorous wife Carla Bruni is behind the shift towards the left.

Sarkozy, famed for his “zero tolerance” policing as interior minister, was once derided on the left as a dangerous right-winger.

But lately he has been showing signs of an ideological rethink— by attacking “fat cats” and the “dictatorship of the market”. He has pledged to create 100,000 state-subsidised jobs.

Nice, France - French President Nicolas Sarkozy launched an impassioned defence Friday of his efforts to end August's Russian-Georgian war, accusing his critics of not having ideas and attacking the role of Georgia's allies, including the United States.

"A number of national leaders said that I shouldn't go to Russia for peace talks or hold a summit with Russia ... What was the best, to have a dialogue or to do nothing? I don't regret taking either decision," a combative Sarkozy said after talks in the French resort of Nice with his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev.

Paris/Warsaw - French President Nicolas Sarkozy will meet the Dalai Lama in Poland next month, but Poland's president will not be available for talks on the EU's stalled reform treaty, officials said Thursday.

Sarkozy, whose country holds the EU's six-month presidency until December 31, is to meet the Tibetan spiritual leader at a December 6 event celebrating 25 years since former Solidarity leader Lech Walesa received the Nobel Peace Prize, officials in Paris said.

Paris - French President Nicolas Sarkozy convinced Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin not to attack the Georgian capital Tbilisi and overthrow Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili this summer, the weekly Le Nouvel Observateur reported on Thursday.

Citing Sarkozy's foreign policy advisor, Jean-David Levitte, the magazine said that the incident occurred at the Kremlin on August 12, when Sarkozy - as president of the European Union - was trying to negotiate an end to the Russia-Georgia conflict.

London, Nov 12: French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni, arrived late to commemorate 1918 Armistice at the battlefield of Verdun, where more than 300,000 French and German soldiers were killed and more than one million wounded in 1916.