Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was sentenced on Monday to three years in prison – one of them on a final conviction – for corruption and influence peddling. The Paris correctional court found the former head of state, who held the Elysée from 2007 to 2012, guilty of attempting to corrupt a judge.
It is the first time during the Fifth Republic that a French president has been sentenced to a firm prison term. Jacques Chirac was sentenced to two years in prison in 2011 for the scandal of fictitious jobs in the Paris mayor’s office, but this did not imply actual imprisonment.
Sarkozy, who has a lot of influence on the right, was until now considered a potential presidential contender again.
Apart from the criminal issue, the ruling is a major political blow because Sarkozy has continued to wield a lot of influence on the French right. He was until now considered a possible contender for the presidency again, a possibility that is evaporating. The current head of state, Emmanuel Macron, maintains a very cordial and fluid relationship with Sarkozy. He consults him and has even entrusted him with official missions. Macron has made use of people who worked for him. For example, the current prime minister, Jean Castex, was deputy secretary-general of the Elysée during Sarkozy’s presidency. The interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, was very close to the former president.
Sarkozy’s lawyers will likely file an appeal and a new trial will have to be held. The two co-defendants, Judge Gilbert Azibert and lawyer Thierry Herzog were also sentenced to the same penalties. Although the judge did not finally get the comfortable and well-paid post in Monaco – thanks to Sarkozy’s mediation – that he had been promised, the court found that there was a clear corruption pact. According to the law, the intent is sufficient for this offense to exist. The national financial prosecutor’s office had asked for four years in prison, two of the firm.
The former president is accused, in another case, of receiving illegal funding from Libya’s Gaddafi regime.
Sarkozy has other very serious open cases, the Pygmalion case, in which he is suspected of having illegally financed his campaign for re-election in 2012. The former head of state is also accused of having received money from the Libyan regime of Moammar al-Gaddafi to finance his 2007 campaign.
The case that is the subject of today’s ruling was uncovered thanks to wiretaps ordered while another affair was being investigated. It was surprising that Sarkozy and his lawyer used mobile phones that were not in his name, methods more befitting of criminals than of someone who had occupied the highest office of state.
A politician who has been everything
Nicolas Sarkozy, the son of an immigrant of Hungarian origin, began his political career very young, at the age of 22, in municipal politics in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a wealthy suburb west of Paris, where he was mayor for almost 20 years. Sarkozy was several times a minister – he held, among others, the interior and economy portfolios – MP, MEP, and president of his party, he won the 2007 presidential election against the socialist Ségolène Royal. His turbulent mandate was characterized by the international financial crisis and his eagerness to reform.
In May 2012 he lost narrowly to the Socialist François Hollande. In his bid to return to the Elysée, he has humiliatingly defeated in the Republican Party (LR) primaries in 2016. He came third. He was overtaken by Alain Juppé and François Fillon. Since then, he has devoted himself to business, as an advisor to several large companies. Sarkozy has been married three times – most recently to Carla Bruni at the Elysée Palace – and is the father of four children. The eldest is 35. The youngest is 9.
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