Paris - The Gaullist movement, already seriously damaged by the trial of Mr Maurice Papon, received another severe setback yesterday when the centrist former president, Mr Valery Giscard d'Estaing, accused Charles de Gaulle of twisting the truth at the Liberation. Mr Papon (87) is accused of crimes against humanity over the wartime deportation of Jews from Bordeaux, but was unable to attend the hearing because he was in hospital with bronchitis.
Despite an adjournment, Mr Giscard's attack meant there was no let-up in controversy against the background of the hearing which has split the Gaullist RPR and seen its leader, Mr Philippe Seguin, reproach President Jacques Chirac for demolishing fundamental Gaullist doctrines. Mr Giscard, president between 1974 and 1981 and founder of the right-wing UDF movement, approved the appointment of Mr Papon as budget minister in 1978. Three years later, he had to resign from the cabinet after documents were discovered linking him to complicity with Nazi policy.
