Nicolas Sarkozy is the first former French president in history to be jailed. His five-year sentence for conspiring to illegally finance his 2007 presidential campaign with funds from Colonel Gaddafi has shocked France.
Speaking outside the Paris court, the 70-year-old Sarkozy described his sentence as “extremely serious for the rule of law and for the trust we can have in the justice system”. He denied that he received money from the late Libyan dictator and said he will appeal his conviction.
Prosecutors have one month to inform Sarkozy when he should go to prison, but he will begin his sentence while his appeal is processed.
Sarkozy’s supporters were quick to rush to his defence and to go on the attack. François-Xavier Bellamy, a leading figure in the former president’s centre-Right Republican Party, pointed out that he had been cleared of corruption and illegal campaign financing but nonetheless received a five-year sentence and a €100,000 fine for conspiracy. “This exceptional treatment, for which there is no justification, speaks volumes about this political judgement,” he said.
Xavier-Bellamy also compared the severity of Sarkozy’s punishment with some of the light sentences handed down in recent years to “perpetrators of serious violence”.
Marine Le Pen, the president of the Right-wing National Rally, said that Sarkozy was a victim of the “two-tier court system” which “represents a great danger to the fundamental principles of our law”.
In March this year, Le Pen was disqualified from political life for five years after a court in Paris found her guilty of embezzling £2.5m in EU funds over an extended period. The court accepted that she had not enriched herself with the money but said she had used it to fund her party’s campaigns. Le Pen called the verdict a “political decision” and a “witch hunt”.
The other high-profile politician to have come a cropper in the French courts in recent years is François Fillon. Like Sarkozy, he was a Republican, and at the start of 2017 was the strong favourite to win that spring’s presidential election. But then a Left-wing newspaper ran a story about financial impropriety, a scandal from which his campaign never recovered. In 2020 he and his Welsh wife received suspended prison sentences. Coincidentally, the judge who convicted Fillon is the same who sentenced Sarkozy on Thursday.
Many Republicans still believe that Fillon was the victim of a dirty tricks campaign by the Socialist Deep State. In 2020 the former head of France’s National Financial Prosecutor’s Office admitted that early in the investigation she came under “pressure” from her superiors to move the case forward quickly.
The conviction of Sarkozy is likely to reinforce the impression among the centre-Right and Right in France that the scales of justice are tipped against them.
One thing is unequivocal: there is a heavy Left-wing bent to the French judiciary. In an interview earlier this year, the conservative interior minister Bruno Retailleau said there were undeniably some “red judges” in France. As evidence, he pointed to the infamous “Mur des cons” (“Wall of Idiots”). In 2013 television cameras revealed that a wall in the office of a leading Magistrates Union was plastered with the photos of public figures considered Right wing, all of whom were dubbed “idiots”.
This same union – to which 33 per cent of magistrates belong – published a statement on the eve of last year’s parliamentary election. Fearing that Le Pen’s party might win a majority, the communiqué called on “all magistrates to mobilise against the rise to power of the far-Right”.
There’s no question that Nicolas Sarkozy, president Bling-Bling as he was known during his time in office, has questionable ethics. But it is curious that these days it seems to be only Right-wing politicians who are convicted in French courts.
Perhaps Left-wing politicians are whiter than white, or is it the judges who are redder than red?
Nicolas Sarkozy is the first former French president in history to be jailed. His five-year sentence for conspiring to illegally finance his 2007 presidential campaign with funds from Colonel Gaddafi has shocked France.
Speaking outside the Paris court, the 70-year-old Sarkozy described his sentence as “extremely serious for the rule of law and for the trust we can have in the justice system”. He denied that he received money from the late Libyan dictator and said he will appeal his conviction.
Prosecutors have one month to inform Sarkozy when he should go to prison, but he will begin his sentence while his appeal is processed.
Sarkozy’s supporters were quick to rush to his defence and to go on the attack. François-Xavier Bellamy, a leading figure in the former president’s centre-Right Republican Party, pointed out that he had been cleared of corruption and illegal campaign financing but nonetheless received a five-year sentence and a €100,000 fine for conspiracy. “This exceptional treatment, for which there is no justification, speaks volumes about this political judgement,” he said.
Xavier-Bellamy also compared the severity of Sarkozy’s punishment with some of the light sentences handed down in recent years to “perpetrators of serious violence”.
Marine Le Pen, the president of the Right-wing National Rally, said that Sarkozy was a victim of the “two-tier court system” which “represents a great danger to the fundamental principles of our law”.
In March this year, Le Pen was disqualified from political life for five years after a court in Paris found her guilty of embezzling £2.5m in EU funds over an extended period. The court accepted that she had not enriched herself with the money but said she had used it to fund her party’s campaigns. Le Pen called the verdict a “political decision” and a “witch hunt”.
The other high-profile politician to have come a cropper in the French courts in recent years is François Fillon. Like Sarkozy, he was a Republican, and at the start of 2017 was the strong favourite to win that spring’s presidential election. But then a Left-wing newspaper ran a story about financial impropriety, a scandal from which his campaign never recovered. In 2020 he and his Welsh wife received suspended prison sentences. Coincidentally, the judge who convicted Fillon is the same who sentenced Sarkozy on Thursday.
Many Republicans still believe that Fillon was the victim of a dirty tricks campaign by the Socialist Deep State. In 2020 the former head of France’s National Financial Prosecutor’s Office admitted that early in the investigation she came under “pressure” from her superiors to move the case forward quickly.
The conviction of Sarkozy is likely to reinforce the impression among the centre-Right and Right in France that the scales of justice are tipped against them.
One thing is unequivocal: there is a heavy Left-wing bent to the French judiciary. In an interview earlier this year, the conservative interior minister Bruno Retailleau said there were undeniably some “red judges” in France. As evidence, he pointed to the infamous “Mur des cons” (“Wall of Idiots”). In 2013 television cameras revealed that a wall in the office of a leading Magistrates Union was plastered with the photos of public figures considered Right wing, all of whom were dubbed “idiots”.
This same union – to which 33 per cent of magistrates belong – published a statement on the eve of last year’s parliamentary election. Fearing that Le Pen’s party might win a majority, the communiqué called on “all magistrates to mobilise against the rise to power of the far-Right”.
There’s no question that Nicolas Sarkozy, president Bling-Bling as he was known during his time in office, has questionable ethics. But it is curious that these days it seems to be only Right-wing politicians who are convicted in French courts.
Perhaps Left-wing politicians are whiter than white, or is it the judges who are redder than red?