Nicolas Sarkozy tried all possible appeals, but the Court of Cassation definitively confirmed his sentence to three years in prison, including one year for corruption and influence peddling. Rest assured, however, the ex-president will not spend a single night in prison, but will be able to serve his sentence with an electronic bracelet in one of his luxury residences. In practice, he should be forced to stay at home for only a few hours of the day, generally at night.
A treatment which contrasts sharply with the multiple prison sentences, suspended prison sentences or the heavy fines inflicted on demonstrators, strikers and in general on the popular and working classes. But also with the political career of Sarkozy himself, who became, at the Elysée, a slayer of “judicial laxity”.
The former head of state, however, was found guilty for the umpteenth time in the so-called Bismuth affair. A first for a President of the Republic. In 2014, Nicolas Sarkozy used his lawyer, Thierry Herzog, to obtain illegal information on the judicial investigations into the financing of his 2007 and 2012 campaign accounts from the magistrate Gilbert Azibert, in exchange for a position as advisor to state in Monaco for the latter.
This new conviction does not mark the end of Nicolas Sarkozy’s legal adventures. The former president, involved in no less than ten cases between 1995 and 2012, is also awaiting the decision of the Court of Cassation in the Bygmalion affair, concerning the illegal financing of his 2012 presidential campaign (more than twice the ceiling authorized) for which he was sentenced to one year in prison, half of which was suspended. The verdict is expected in 2025. A legal year which promises to be busy for the former head of state, since he will also appear in court at the start of the year in connection with suspicions of Libyan financing of his campaign of 2007, accompanied by three of his former ministers (Claude Guéant, Brice Hortefeux and Éric Woerth).
Faced with the disgust and anger of workers and the popular classes at being led by fraudsters in the service of employers, the regime must now condemn, at least in form, those who have not even taken the trouble to be discreet. Which does not prevent successful careers of fraudsters from continuing, such as the government in place or the recent adventures of Marine Le Pen and the National Rally with the justice system, in the context of the trial of the RN assistants, are the daily example.
