Oil-for-palaces scandal nabs the French...

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France's former ambassador to the UN, Jean-Bernard Mérimée, has been detained in connection with an investigation into the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal, French officials said yesterday.

Mérimée, 68, who is suspected of having been allocated oil vouchers by Saddam Hussein's regime, will be questioned by an investigating judge in Paris today.

He is the latest in a series of top French public figures, companies and institutions to be drawn into the controversy.

Mérimée's name appeared in last year's report by the senior US arms inspector Charles Duelfer. He was alleged to have been allocated 11 million barrels of oil between December 2001 and March 2003.

The Duelfer report described the allocations as "not performed" and French investigators have been attempting to establish whether Mérimée was knowingly a named beneficiary of Iraqi oil vouchers or the innocent target of a failed bribery plot.