Summary Former Frech President used money of an old ladt without her consent.
Sarkozy will be questioned on suspicion of taking financial advantage of an old lady.
Sarkozy is due to appear before examining magistrate Jean-Michel Gentil in Bordeaux on suspicion of having illegally obtained funding for his 2007 electoral campaign from elderly L Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt.
Judicial sources have told AFP that the 57-year-old could be formally indicted on a charge of taking advantage of someone in a position of weakness, although the magistrate also has the option of interrogating him as a witness under caution.
Bettencourt, France s richest woman, is 90 years old and has been in poor health since 2006.
The allegation against Sarkozy is two-fold: that the money obtained from her took his campaign financing over legal limits and that it had been secured without her full knowledge or consent.
This latter claim was made by Bettencourt s former accountant, Claire Thibout, who told police that she had handed 150,000 euros in cash to Bettencourt s right-hand man, Patrice de Maistre, on the understanding it was to be passed on to Sarkozy s campaign treasurer, Eric Woerth.
Maistre, one of the biggest backers of Sarkozy s UMP party, withdrew a total of four million euros in cash from Bettencourt s Swiss bank account in seven instalments between 2007 and 2009.
Investigators suspect some or all of the money could have found its way to Sarkozy or his party.
In July, the examining magistrate ordered the seizure of Sarkozy s diaries in order to establish what he was doing around the time the cash was being moved.
The Bettencourt case is one of at least two criminal probes in which Sarkozy is embroiled.
French authorities confirmed this week they have also opened a preliminary investigation over the management of opinion polls carried out during his 2007-12 term as president.
That probe was triggered by anti-graft organisation Anticor, which suspects the former president of having handed the contract for the polls to a company, Publifact, run by his former advisor Patrick Buisson, and of using public funds to carry out his own party political electoral research.
Sarkozy is now pursuing a career on the international conference circuit but has not ruled out another tilt at the presidency in 2017. Aides refused to comment on either case.
