FRANCE: Another taboo in French presidential campaigns has fallen. Candidates' relatives are now considered fair game by the French media.
Over the past three days the allegation that Ségolène Royal's older brother, Gérard, placed the limpet mines that sank the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand in 1985 became front-page news in Paris.
The controversy started when Ms Royal's younger brother, Antoine, gave an interview to Le Parisien newspaper for a special issue on "The True Character of Ségolène" on September 29th.
Earlier press reports said that Gérard Royal, a former officer with the French intelligence agency DGSE (Directorate for External Security), piloted the motorboat that carried French commando frogmen to the ship in Auckland harbour on the night of July 10th, 1985.
President Francois Mitterrand's government destroyed the ship to prevent it disrupting nuclear tests in the South Pacific. Fernando Pereira, a Portuguese photographer, died in the blast.
Antoine Royal said: "[ Gérard] was called to New Zealand in 1985 for the sabotage of the Rainbow Warrior. Later he told me that he was the one who planted the bomb on the Greenpeace ship."
Gérard Royal left the French army about 10 years ago with the rank of colonel, and has never commented on the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior.
Comments by Ms Royal and other socialists imply that the right is using her brother's role in the Greenpeace bombing to smear her. However, this begs the fact that her own brother made the allegation.
Campaigning in Brittany at the weekend, Ms Royal noted the "coincidence" that the story surfaced on the day she declared her candidacy for the presidency. She called her brother "a great soldier", and called on the defence ministry to make the truth known.
In a rare show of solidarity, Ms Royal's rivals for the socialist party nomination sided with her.
Laurent Fabius - who was prime minister when the ship sank - denounced the allegations as "sickening", adding: "If they want to stop the socialists that way, they won't succeed."
Dominique Strauss-Kahn said that in a campaign "no one is responsible for what their father, brother or sister does".
Police in New Zealand said they would reopen the Rainbow Warrior file. However, the prime minister of New Zealand, Helen Clark, yesterday ruled out further legal action.
Two French agents - not including Col Royal - served 2½ years of 10-year sentences for manslaughter in the affair. The French government paid damages to New Zealand and to Greenpeace, but Pascal Husting, the director of Greenpeace France, said the dead photographer's family never received an apology.
He said Greenpeace does not want the bombing to become a campaign issue, but he hoped it would prompt Ms Royal to make a stand for nuclear disarmament.
No skeleton, it seems, will be left undisturbed in the Royal family closet. Antoine Royal, who runs a lumber mill in eastern France, denies charges that he defrauded the social security administration, saying proceedings against him are intended to harm his sister's campaign.
Le Parisien also reported that Ms Royal's cousin, Anne-Christine Royal, is standing for the extreme right-wing National Front in a byelection in Bordeaux this month.
When Ms Royal's teenage son was detained by police several months ago while drinking with friends, her entourage suspected the interior ministry, under the orders of her right-wing rival Nicolas Sarkozy, of alerting reporters.