Sarkozy's lawyer says L'Oreal heiress party funding case is flawed

PARIS (Reuters) - Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy came out fighting on Friday after he was placed under investigation for exploiting the mental frailty of the country's richest woman to raise election funds, with his lawyer rejecting the case as flawed. A Bordeaux magistrate launched an inquiry on Thursday into whether Sarkozy took advantage of 90-year-old L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, after she was declared in a state of dementia, to help raise money for his 2007 election campaign. The "abuse of weakness" case threatens to scupper any political comeback for Sarkozy, who was unseated by Socialist Francois Hollande last year, by leaving him under a cloud of suspicion for months...