One of France’s most powerful tycoons defended himself on Sunday against charges that he helped African leaders win elections in return for lucrative contracts.

Vincent Bolloré, 66, who built a business empire in Africa over 30 years, claimed that the case against him was rooted in prejudice against the continent.

But commentators said it signalled that France would no longer turn a blind eye to corruption in Africa to serve the interests of the French elite.

In an article in the Sunday newspaper Journal du Dimanche, Mr Bolloré said Africa was wrongfully depicted in France as a “land of misrule, even corruption”.

Mr Bolloré, who denies any wrongdoing, is accused of ordering his political consultancy to help the presidential campaigns of Alpha Condé in Guinea and Faure Gnassingbé in Togo in return for licences to operate container ports. He said: “People imagine heads of state deciding by themselves to award huge contracts to unscrupulous investors.”

He argued that it was not “a few hundred thousand euros” spent on campaign communications that “determined hundreds of millions of euros of investment in port operations that require significant technical know-how, obtained through international tenders.”

Mr Bolloré is a friend of Nicolas Sarkozy, the former president who has himself been charged with illegally accepting millions of euros in campaign donations from Libya’s late dictator, Muammar Gadaffi. Mr Sarkozy denies the accusation.