Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was sentenced on Monday March 1 to 3 years in prison, 2 of which were suspended. He was found guilty of corruption and influence peddling in the “wiretapping” case by the courts in his country.
Long accused in this case also involving his lawyer Thierry Herzog and the former high magistrate Gilbert Azibert, the 66-year-old former French president thus becomes the second former president convicted under the Fifth French Republic after Jacques Chirac. In December 2020, the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) had requested 4 years of imprisonment, two of which were closed against him, believing that the presidential image had been damaged by this affair with “devastating effects”.
As a reminder, the case dates back to 2014. The judges had discovered, in fact, that the former president was using a secret telephone line open under the alias of “Paul Bismuth” to communicate with his lawyer within the framework of the investigation into the suspicions of Libyan financing of his presidential campaign of 2007. Transcribed, these conversations prove, according to the prosecution, that a pact of corruption was concluded between Nicolas Sarkozy, his lawyer and Gilbert Azibert.
This conviction comes shortly before a second trial of the former French president scheduled for March 17, 2021 in the Bygmalion case, “which concerns the expenses of his 2012 presidential campaign.
