Cherchez La Femme!

Tripped up by a high-living lady friend, France's fifth highest official is probed for corruption

Roland Dumas had it all. Suave, wealthy and well connected, the silver-haired lawyer, art collector and bon vivant reveled in a life of power and influence. Picasso and Giacometti were his clients. His long list of female conquests included opera singers and models. His best friend was the late Socialist President Francois Mitterrand, who twice named him Foreign Minister and in 1995 appointed him President of the Constitutional Council, roughly equivalent to the U.S. Supreme Court, making Dumas France's fifth highest-ranking official. But that charmed life seemed on the verge of imploding last week when two French judges drove to his...

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