FIRST, conversations of Nicolas Sarkozy (pictured), France’s former president, were secretly recorded by one of his own advisers. Now it turns out that he has had his phone bugged for nearly a year by investigating judges. More than the first snooping affair, these latest bugging revelations, published in Le Monde, a newspaper, on March 7th, could damage Mr Sarkozy’s chances of a comeback ahead of the 2017 presidential election. The latest affair is unprecedented for a former president of the Fifth Republic. Investigating judges, who have sweeping powers under French law, have been tapping Mr Sarkozy’s phone for months, initially as part of an investigation into alleged illegal financing by the former Libyan regime of his 2007 election campaign. While listening in, according Le Monde, they were alerted to what they considered could have been an attempt to exchange inside information from a high-ranking prosecutor about ongoing judicial investigations in return for a possible plum job in Monaco.

Mr Sarkozy’s lawyer, Thierry Herzog, whose conversations with his client were also bugged, has called the wire-tapping “monstrous”, breaking attorney-client privilege. He denied any attempt to extract favours, and called the allegations “absurd”. The whole case, he said, was clearly a “political affair”.

Since leaving office in 2012, when his presidential immunity expired, Mr Sarkozy has been linked to a number of judicial investigations, which at various points looked as if they might thwart his political comeback. In 2012 Mr Sarkozy was detained by investigators for hours for questioning into alleged illegal party financing by Liliane Bettencourt, a billionaire heiress of the family that owns L’Oréal, a cosmetics empire. But late last year investigating judges dropped preliminary charges against him, removing one obstacle in the way of his return to political life.

Now, this latest judicial investigation throws fresh uncertainty on to Mr Sarkozy’s attempted comeback. Even if investigating magistrates fail to find enough evidence to send such cases for trial, the process can drag on for months, if not years. This is why Mr Sarkozy’s friends see it as a political attempt to keep their champion out of politics. “The more Nicolas Sarkozy embodies hope in the eyes of the French, the more he becomes the target,” said Brice Hortefeux, a former minister, whose phone was also tapped according to Le Monde.

Later this week, a Paris court is due to rule whether investigating judges looking into another case of alleged illegal election-financing by the Bettencourt family acted legally when they seized Mr Sarkozy’s diaries. A number of figures have been charged in this affair, including Eric Woerth, Mr Sarkozy’s former campaign treasurer. The ruling could also have an impact on the evidence admissible in yet another case that touches Mr Sarkozy, this one centred on Bernard Tapie, a business tycoon, and the circumstances of an arbitration pay-out made to him by the state.

For now, Mr Sarkozy is continuing his return to public life as planned. He appeared today in Nice to open a health centre (and refused to comment on the affairs). In a separate case, his lawyer has requested an injunction to forbid the publication of conversations secretly taped by Patrick Buisson, a one-time presidential adviser, which were leaked to the press last week. Less than two weeks before local elections, the fall-out may touch not only the former president. A poll in a Sunday newspaper, conducted after the latest bugging affair, suggested that 44% considered all this damaging for Mr Sarkozy—and 57% judged it hurt the entire political class.