sarkozy
The most damaging blow to President Nicolas Sarkozy this week might appear to be the loss of his majority in the Senate. On September 25th control of France's upper house swung to the left for the first time in the Fifth Republic. This was not a direct test of popular sentiment: the senatorial electoral college is made up mainly of local and regional councillors, and the Socialists have won many local elections in recent years. But it was a symbolic knock for Mr Sarkozy just seven months before a presidential election, and it has crushed morale in his party.

Yet it is the fall-out from a slow-crawling corruption case that could prove more wounding. Over the past week, a judicial inquiry into what is known as the Karachi affair has closed in on allies of Mr Sarkozy. The investigation is linked to kickbacks on the sale of submarines to Pakistan in 1994, as well as to a 2002 bomb attack in Karachi in which 11 French naval technicians were killed. On September 22nd Nicolas Bazire, a senior executive at LVMH, a luxury-goods group, who was Mr Sarkozy's best man at his wedding in 2008 to Carla Bruni, was charged with "complicity in the misuse of public money". The previous day Thierry Gaubert, another businessman and former colleague of Mr Sarkozy, had been charged in connection with the investigation. Both deny the accusations.

The pair's links to Mr Sarkozy go beyond friendship. Between 1993 and 1995 Mr Bazire was chief of staff to Edouard Balladur, then France's prime minister, and campaign manager during Mr Balladur's (unsuccessful) bid for the presidency in 1995. During that time, Mr Sarkozy served first as Mr Balladur's budget minister and then as his campaign spokesman. Mr Gaubert was Mr Sarkozy's deputy chief of staff for part of the period. Investigating judges suspect that the Pakistani kickbacks helped to finance Mr Balladur's campaign.

Last week the Elysée issued a terse statement saying that Mr Sarkozy had "never had the slightest responsibility" for the financing of Mr Balladur's campaign, and that his name "does not appear in any element of the dossier" concerning the Karachi affair. "All the rest", it declared darkly, "is calumny and political manipulation".

Since then, there have been further twists. Investigators have opened a separate inquiry into whether Brice Hortefeux - another old friend of Mr Sarkozy and his former interior minister, as well as a friend of Mr Gaubert - breached judicial-confidentiality laws. Mr Hortefeux telephoned Mr Gaubert to tell him that his wife, Hélène, had "told [investigators] a lot" when questioned in connection with the affair.

This was not inside information, insists Mr Hortefeux: he was simply reacting to "press rumours". Mrs Gaubert, who is in divorce proceedings, told French radio that her husband went often to Switzerland and returned with suitcases of cash. He travelled there, she said, with Ziad Takieddine, a Franco-Lebanese arms broker, who has also been charged in the Karachi affair. Mr Takieddine is another close friend of Mr Hortefeux.

Even if Mr Sarkozy is not directly touched, the affair leaves a sour taste. The impression is of a clique of powerful men up to no good, linked by a potent mix of money, politics and business, and of an executive branch too close to the justice system. At a time when a series of scandals has touched the left as well as the right, not only Mr Sarkozy but all mainstream politics might bear the electoral cost. A TNS Sofres poll this week showed that 72% of the French think that politicians are corrupt - the highest level since the pollster first asked the question in 1977.