Bernard Tapie made a fortune at the start of his career by taking over ailing companies
Paris:
Former French minister and scandal mogul Bernard Tapie, the former owner of Adidas, was assaulted along with his wife during a nighttime break-in at their home, police sources said on Sunday.
The couple were asleep when four people broke into their home in Combs-la-Ville near Paris at around 12:30 a.m. (10:30 p.m. GMT Saturday) on Sunday, beat them and tied them up before fleeing with their loot.
Dominique Tapie was able to free herself and went to a neighbor where she alerted the police. Slightly injured, she was then taken to hospital.
Tapie himself refused to be taken into care, the sources said.
There was no immediate information about the property the perpetrators took and the value of the loot.
Tapie is a former socialist minister who emerged from humble beginnings to build a sports and media empire, but then faced a series of legal issues.
He made a fortune early in his career taking over failed businesses and often flaunted his wealth, including buying a 72-meter yacht and a football club.
A fraud case has harassed Tapie for more than a decade, involving a hugely controversial settlement worth 400 million euros ($ 470 million at current rates) awarded to him by a government arbitration committee , whose size sent shock waves across France.
The jury ruled he was a victim of fraud when he sold his stake in sportswear company Adidas in 1993 to French state bank Crédit Lyonnais, which had undervalued the clothing brand. sport.
The case also trapped then Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, who now heads the European Central Bank.
Lagarde’s handling of the case has raised suspicions that his former boss Nicolas Sarkozy, whom Tapie supported as president in 2007, was favorably disposed towards the businessman – allegations Sarkozy has vehemently denied.
Police are treating Sunday’s incident as a violent robbery and kidnapping, another source close to the investigation told AFP.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by NDTV staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)