Another condemnation, the second definitive condemnation: no peace Nicolas SarkozyThe former French president was released last November 10 after three weeks in prison in La Santé.
The Court of Cassation has actually rejected his lawyer’s final appeal against a sentence of one year in prison for the ‘Bygmalion’ case: with the benefits provided by the law, he should actually serve a six-month probationary period with an electronic bracelet. Sarkò is accused of profiting from fake invoices that covered the costs of the 2012 election campaign he lost. “I noticed,” commented the former head of state flatly. However, his lawyers said they were “reflecting” on their client regarding the possibility of appealing to the European Court of Human Rights. The Court of Cassation followed the advocate general’s recommendation and rejected Sarkozy’s appeal, thereby entering a second definitive sentence on the former president’s criminal record.
The first, which in the “Bismuth” investigation into telephone tapping, gave him a final sentence in December 2024 for attempted bribery of a judge to one year in prison (also in that case with the benefit of probation with an electronic bracelet). As a result, Sarkozy restricted his movements and always wore the bracelet from last February until the middle of his sentence, in May, when he gained freedom for reasons of age, after turning 70 years old. This second sentence makes Sarkozy’s personal situation and his judicial prospects even more burdensome: on September 25, the court sentenced him to 5 years in prison for Libyan funds, a harsh sentence that the court explained was based on the defendant’s criminal record. These judges did not consider the Bygmalion case, which had not yet undergone a definitive evolution. Now, at the appeal hearing over the Libyan funds, scheduled from March 16 to June 3, the Court of Appeal will consider further aggravations of the defendant’s judicial past. The final decision in the Bygmalion case followed and confirmed the appeal decision on 14 February 2024. Investigations revealed that, to hide the explosive costs of the 2012 election campaign, fake invoices were issued when Sarkozy was defeated by François Hollande.
Sarkozy’s campaign cost around 43 million euros against the legal 22.5 euros, which is why a double billing system was set up that charged – through the company Bygmalion created by Sarkozy’s collaborators – the costs of most of the election campaign to the UMP, the ancestral party of the Républicains, thanks to fictitious agreements and conventions. In contrast to the other defendants, Sarkozy was not convicted because of the false invoice system, but because he was the beneficiary, as a candidate, of illegal financing. In the previous two stages of the trial, the former president denied the allegations and called them “fairy tales” and “lies”.
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