Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been questioned by police over allegations he received millions of euros in illicit campaign funding from the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
Ro Aram has the details.
The inquiry began in 2013, but police on Tuesday took Sarkozy into custody for questioning for the first time over the allegations.
The investigation is potentially France's most explosive political financing scandal in decades.
The former president has dismissed allegations that Gaddafi illegally funded his 2007 campaign as "grotesque" and a "crude manipulation".
The amount of money in question was 50 million euros - more than double the legal campaign funding limit, which at the time was 21 million.
The alleged payments would also violate French rules against foreign financing and declaring the source of campaign funds.
The inquiry was kicked off after the French investigative website Mediapart published a document it said was signed by a senior Libyan figure stating the regime approved the 50-million-euro payment.
Sarkozy and his close aides had claimed the documents were false, but French courts had ruled certain ones were authentic, enabling the probe to go on.
It gained steam after a French-Lebanese businessman who was close to Gaddafi's regime told Mediapart two years ago that he was the one who personally delivered suitcases of cash.
Sarkozy had refused police summons up until now, and now that he has finally shown up, police can hold him for 48 hours.
After that, they can release him or send him before magistrates who decide whether they have grounds for turning a preliminary inquiry into a full investigation.
This is the second major judicial investigation to fall on Sarkozy, as he already faces trial on separate charges of illicit spending overruns during his failed re-election campaign in 2012.
Ro Aram, Arirang News.