Billionaire yacht owner defends Sarkozy stay

A billionaire French businessman who lent his yacht to Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday rejected accusations that his close relationship with France's future President could lead to special favours for his companies.

After Sunday's election, Mr Sarkozy went for a short break in Malta on a 70-metre luxury cruiser belonging to Vincent Bolloré, the largest shareholder in advertising group Havas who also has stakes in a web of financial and industrial firms. Opposition leaders said it showed the right-wing president-elect was out of touch with normal people and too close to big business.

Mr Bolloré said he did not expect his group to win favourable treatment in exchange for the free trip.

"Just because you are friends with somebody, it doesn't mean there are no ethics in the relationship," he said in an interview with Le Parisien newspaper published yesterday.

Mr Bolloré has said his group had no commercial ties with the French state, but Le Monde newspaper cited official documents showing his firms had several state contracts, including one for the delivery of diplomatic documents.

It also listed a €342,329 contract won by the Mr Bolloré group for work at police headquarters in the city of Grenoble, awarded in December by the interior ministry when Mr Sarkozy was Interior Minister.

Mr Bolloré told Le Parisien yesterday: "We are a French group par excellence which is totally independent from the state. We have no contract with public power."

He said Leon Blum, the first Socialist Prime Minister of France, spent time in a Bollore manor after World War II.

Although Mr Sarkozy's 48-hour holiday made a big splash in the press, an opinion poll published on Thursday showed 58 per cent of people did not find the trip shocking.