Dominique de Villepin, right, was one of Jacques Chirac's, left, closest allies [AFP]

Judges signed the order late on Tuesday, requiring de Villepin to appear before the court over what sources close to the trail said was alleged "complicity in libel".

De Villepin has consistently denied any wrongdoing in the case - known as the "Clearstream Affair" - in which he is accused of trying to tarnish Sarkozy's reputation with faked documents before the 2007 presidential election.

De Villepin said: "Nothing justifies this decision to go to trial. Throughout the judicial investigation, the reality of the facts and of the law has been twisted in favour of a single plaintiff who is at the same time president of the republic."

Secret accounts

Also ordered to stand trial were: Jean-Louis Gergorin, a former senior executive of EADS, the European aircraft maker; Imad Lahoud, a computer specialist; Denis Robert, a journalist; and Florian Bourges, a former consultant.

The scandal first emerged in 2004, when a magistrate working on a corruption case received information about secret accounts at Clearstream, a Luxembourg securities clearing house, apparently held by Sarkozy and dozens of other senior figures.

The accounts proved to be fake and the investigation soon switched to uncovering who was behind the affair.

Speculation focused on de Villepin, who had ordered intelligence officials to conduct a secret investigation of the purported accounts, documents from which were then passed to the magistrate.

The informant was subsequently revealed to be Gergorin, a behind-the-scenes operator who combined close ties to the intelligence services with his role as an EADS executive.

Sarkozy became a plaintiff in the Clearstream case in 2006.

Poisonous scandal

The examining magistrates believe de Villepin may have prompted Gergorin to hand over the documents.

The state prosecutor has said that at the very least he did not prevent Gergorin from acting, despite doubting the authenticity of the files.

Likely to be a drawn out affair, the trial is expected to begin in 2010 and to re-open one of the most poisonous scandals of the era of Jacques Chirac, the former president.
 
De Villepin, a career diplomat best known for his denunciation of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, was one of Chirac's closest allies, first as chief of staff and then as foreign and interior minister before becoming prime minister in 2005.

As well as untangling the details of the case, the trial will highlight the bitter rivalry between de Villepin and Sarkozy, his one-time interior minister, as the two vied to succeed Chirac in the Elysee Palace.

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