Clear as mud

On France Inter, Wednesday morning (19 Apr), they were talking about Clearstream. I didn't hear all of it and I understood even less; and it was too late to pick up their podcast. Still ... One word that was mentioned several times was le corbeau. This word, literally meaning crow,  is used for auteur de lettres anonymes or  'writer of poison-pen letters'.

It appears that the false accusations have been made against leading politicians, including Nicolas Sarkozy. The offices of the Airbus chief executive were raided in connection with this and raids targeted at executives of EADS have also been made. (AFP, Paris - reported in the FT, 6 Apr 2006).  This is not to say that true accusations have not been made. These involve money-laundering and cover-ups.

The people on the radio programme were Vincent Peillon, socialist European MP; and Denis Robert, journalist and  writer. Further research could be called for.