A week after foreign and local media revealed information about the alleged illegal sale of French visas to Bulgarians, French ambassador Dominique Chassard officially denied allegations that he was involved.

In a letter translated into Bulgarian and faxed to media on Monday, Chassard said that he had not been "brutally recalled" to Paris and had not taken a part in any "illegal trade" of visas.

On August 13, a BBC broadcast quoted the French newspaper Tribune which reported about a scandal surrounding the illegal issuing of French visas to Bulgarian citizens and the alleged involvement of the French Embassy. The French Foreign Ministry has ordered a court inquiry to investigate the case. According to the BBC report, the Ministry confirmed that Chassard was involved in the process and promptly recalled to Paris.

"I personally do not issue any kind of visas and during my mandate of two and a half years, I have not under any circumstances interfered with the issuing of visas in favour of anybody under conditions discrepant to the law and the accepted procedures," read Chassard's statement. "Nobody has made me any proposals in that sense," the ambassador said, noting that the allegations dishonour his reputation.

Chassard is currently in France but prepared the statement last Saturday when he returned to Sofia. Embassy officials refused to reveal any information about the short visit.

Martin Wlodarczyk, press attache of the French Embassy, told The Echo he could not say anything about the reasons behind the ambassador's return. The secretary to Martine Bailly, the embassy's charge d'affaires, said that Bailly did not want to make any statements on the issue.

Chassard is expected to come back to Sofia today briefly as his mandate has come to an end. "He finished his mission successfully and is definitely leaving Bulgaria on Saturday," Wlodarczyk said. It remained unclear as to whether Chassard would make any official statement while in Sofia. Wlodarczyk did not know what the ambassador was going to do after he officially finished his mission in Bulgaria.

The embassy's press attache said he did not have any information about official results of the investigation or about the removal of a French Embassy employee who allegedly was involved in the illegal sale of visas earlier this year. "The visa affair concerns an employee of the consular department and the period from the end of 2000," Chassard's statement read. "This person left Bulgaria in January on my request and there is an investigation at the moment for whose final results it is dishonourable to make any preliminary conclusions." Chassard would likely be called as a witness in the investigation.

Asked why the letter was sent a week after the first information of the scandal surfaced, Wlodarczyk said that it was sent at the right moment and added: "The ambassador should have sent a fax to the media the day after the first article, but he was on holidays at that time." According to Wlodarczyk, Chassard thought it was necessary to send such a statement to all media. "What was important was to say what he said."

Wlodarczyk did not want to comment on media reports that five Bulgarian employees of the French Consulate have been fired in connection with the case. "I do not think you will find this information anywhere," he said, adding he did not think there were any employees of the embassy fired in connection with the scandal.