It became a best-seller, and started a controversy over the ambiguous behaviour of Mitterrand with respect to both Marshal Philippe Pétain and the French Resistance during the occupation of France by Germany.

He alleged that evidence pointed to Iran and Syria (acting through the Hezbollah movement), but that due to political context (notably the Gulf War), France and the United States tried to put the blame on Libya.

In particular, they alleged that Jean-Marie Colombani and Edwy Plenel had, amongst other things, shown partisan bias (concerning Corsica, for example) and engaged in financial dealings that compromised the paper's independence.

These findings remain controversial, but attracted much attention in France and around the world at the time of their publication, not least because they impugned the analytical reliability of a paper whose emphasis is precisely on analysis and not simply straight reporting.

The fact that he alleged the existence of a "counter-genocide" immediately sparked critics of his book as a revisionist attempt to alter the accepted history of the Rwanda genocide with a false comparison.

[6] In 2008, Pierre Péan wrote The World According to K, another controversial book, on the supposed ties between Bernard Kouchner - French foreign minister - and African dictators.

The case related to four pages in Péan's book "Noires Fureurs, Blancs Menteurs" ("Black Furies, White Liars"), published in 2005.

On the second day of the trial, Péan burst into tears when a former leader of the French Union of Jewish Students compared his book to Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.

In November 2008, when the case against Péan was dismissed, his lawyer said the verdict was "a victory for freedom of expression, and for a real exchange of ideas on what is a very difficult subject."