September 9, 2010 5:17 PM EDT
French police visited President Nicolas Sarkozy's party headquarters this week in an investigation into political donations and the financial affairs of Europe's richest woman, a police spokesman said on Thursday.
The visit on Wednesday marked the first time that Sarkozy's ruling UMP party was directly targeted by inquiries started in June.
The spokesman said police were seeking traces of a letter sent in 2007 by Labour Minister Eric Woerth, then UMP party treasurer, to then-Interior Minister Sarkozy, backing the granting of a national award to a man who was wealth manager for L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt and who employed Woerth's wife.
The party confirmed the police visit but said this did not amount to a raid. "The police came to our office yesterday to seek information. We agreed to open our doors," a UMP spokeswoman said, declining to elaborate on the police requests.
What began as a family feud between Bettencourt and her daughter has exploded into a series of investigations concerning political donations, suspected tax evasion and money laundering.
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Woerth, a close Sarkozy ally who is also in charge of seeing a disputed pension reform through parliament, has acknowledged that he intervened on Patrice de Maistre's behalf concerning the prestigious Legion d'Honneur title.
Woerth has come under pressure to resign after it emerged that his wife worked for the Bettencourt wealth manager amid broader allegations that he handled funds used for Sarkozy's 2007 election campaign.
Woerth and Maistre have repeatedly denied the allegations and Woerth insists his involvement in the Legion d'Honneur was nothing more than routine business for a member of parliament.
Maistre received the Legion d'Honneur in early 2008, two months after Woerth's wife was recruited to work at the firm Clymene, which manages Bettencourt's vast fortune.
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