Nicolas Sarkozy has hit back after being charged with corruption, denying he broke the law and suggesting his political enemies were interfering with the French justice system.
"I have never committed any act contrary to the values of the republic or the rule of law," Sarkozy said on Wednesday after he was charged on three corruption-related counts that threaten to torpedo his hopes of a political comeback.
"I have never betrayed the confidence" of the French people, he added, in extracts of an interview to be aired later by LCI television and Europe 1 radio.
It was to be Sarkozy's first major broadcast interview since he lost the 2012 presidential election to Francois Hollande.
Sarkozy also decried what he called "political interference" in the case - a suggestion that opponents like the ruling Socialists were behind his legal woes.
"In our country, which is the country of human rights and the rule of law, there are things that are being organised," Sarkozy said.
He said he was "deeply shocked" by the charges, adding that "everything is being done to give me an image that is not truthful".
"The time has come to explain, to have my say," Sarkozy said.
Sarkozy, 59, was earlier hit with charges including corruption and influence peddling after he was quizzed for 15 hours by judges investigating an alleged attempt to interfere in judicial proceedings in another case.
After the interrogation in a Paris police station, Sarkozy was put before a judge in the early hours of Wednesday.
The judge accepted the examining magistrates request for the former president to be "mis en examen" - literally "put under investigation" - the nearest equivalent of being charged in the French legal system.
Sarkozy's longstanding lawyer Thierry Herzog and senior magistrate Gilbert Azibert were charged with the same offences.
After the hearing, Sarkozy was allowed to return to the Paris home he shares with his ex-supermodel wife Carla Bruni and their young daughter, but he can be recalled for questioning at any time.
The case was launched after judges looking into the alleged financing of Sarkozy's 2007 election campaign by former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi obtained an unprecedented and controversial authorisation to tap the former president's phones from April 2013.
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