Gdf Suez - French Businessman Seeks New Probe Into Lagarde Reuters

PARIS Mon May 30, 2011 4:49pm EDT

PARIS (Reuters) - A French business person plus anti-corruption campaigner possesses questioned prosecutors in order to check out your purpose regarding French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, that front runner to turn into the subsequent IMF head, in a very recent company deal.

Jean-Marie Kuhn accuses Lagarde associated with abusing the girl expert by enabling assert loan company Caisse des Depots to get a twenty five per cent stake in GRTgaz, the fuel grid of power GDF Suez (GSZ.PA), sooner that year, in line with a content associated with their letter to a state prosecutor.

"We consider this natural fantasy," a new loan ministry standard advised Reuters within reaction to Kuhn's allegation.

Lagarde, who seem to won adhere to pertaining to the woman's role with managing this euro zoom unsecured debt crisis, previously encounters an issue into her 2008 selection to be in a new contest in between the actual state and also business person Bernard Tapie, somebody associated with President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Lagarde offers dissmissed off any misconduct in the Tapie affair.

The original top legal practitioner provides swiftly surfaced because primary candidate in order to exchange Dominique Strauss-Kahn as coping with director in the International Monetary Fund.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said about Sunday this the lady had picked up that service involving frontrunners on the Group connected with Eight locations after they met on Thursday plus Friday in France.

Kuhn features questioned prosecutor Jean-Louis Nadal that's likewise investigating the actual Tapie circumstance to help find a the courtroom study directly into Lagarde's factor in GDF Suez 's good discounts of the GRTgaz share in order to Caisse des Depots.

He said the actual purchase applied court finances with regard to a great expense which was none organizing for that commercial lender nor functioned a new reason for that standard public.

"This is usually embezzlement associated with criminal court funds regarding which Lagarde is actually a good accomplice, committing along the way a lot of violations of expert and power," Kuhn explained in his correspondence for you to Nadal, incorporating that his action had not been politically motivated.

(Reporting by Leigh Thomas ; Editing by simply Catherine Bremer along with Lin Noueihed)