Lthe conviction of Nicolas Sarkozy to prison in the so-called affair of “listens” is an earthquake. This is the first time under the Ve Republic that a former President of the Republic receives such a heavy sentence for such serious acts – corruption and influence peddling – at the end of a legal journey which took him from the criminal court to the Court of Cassation. His appeal was rejected on Tuesday, December 17, making his sentence of three years’ imprisonment final, including one under an electronic bracelet, accompanied by three years of ineligibility.
What this incredible affair reveals, which dates back to 2014, contrasts with the level of influence that Nicolas Sarkozy managed to maintain, until recent days. The former head of state who delivers his lessons in geopolitics on the international stage is the same man who used a secret telephone line registered under a false name – Paul Bismuth – to communicate with his lawyer friend, because he feared that the official line is tapped. The one who prides himself today on whispering in the ear of Emmanuel Macron is the same one who considered with the said lawyer to establish a “corruption pact” with a senior magistrate at the Court of Cassation, in order to obtain information and try to influence an appeal he filed in the Bettencourt affair.
Faithful to his strategy, the former President of the Republic, as soon as his conviction was confirmed, proclaimed his innocence by castigating “rights of defense violated » as part of “ twelve long years of judicial harassment.” But the referral to the European Court of Human Rights that he is preparing to launch does not prevent the execution of his sentence. It also places him in the unenviable situation of a former head of state who, after having represented and defended France, now seeks to have it condemned.
Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers How Nicolas Sarkozy was definitively convicted in the wiretapping affair
Read later
Surrounded by business
At almost 70 years old, Nicolas Sarkozy is surrounded by business. In the trial relating to suspicions of Libyan financing of his 2007 presidential campaign, which opens in January, he faces ten years in prison and five years of ineligibility. The political prodigy who embodied, in 2007, the renewal of the right, the one who managed during this same election to push back the National Front is brought back to the most questionable aspect of his personality. It is not certain that he fully understood it.
You have 34.65% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
France
