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Claims of corrupt links between a French billionaire and top politicians have not just shaken Nicolas Sarkozy's presidency - they have revived deeply held suspicions that something is rotten in the state of France.

"We are in a banana republic and the French can't take it any more," a dissident right-wing MP said last week - even before the latest allegations that L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt had showered right-wing politicians with cash.

Marianne, a left-wing magazine, wrote on its website that under President Sarkozy "all the moral rules required in pursuit of the public interest" had been broken.

Following claims made by Ms Bettencourt's former accountant, prosecutors are now investigating whether the billionaire illegally funded Mr Sarkozy's presidential campaign in 2007.

The irony is that the explosion of funding scandals in the past two decades has coincided with unprecedented attempts to clean up France's political life.

It began in the late 1980s, when it was revealed that the then-governing socialists - among others - had set up bogus consultancies to collect kickbacks from firms bidding for public contracts and channel the cash back to party coffers.

Resulting public outrage led the government to pass France's first law on political finance in 1988.

This set strict limits to donations and spending, instituted monitoring bodies, and - crucially - public funding of parties to try to end their dependence on interested corporate cash.