The former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has been convicted of illegal campaign financing in his failed 2012 re-election bid, after the country’s highest court rejected his final appeal.
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Sarkozy, who was the country’s rightwing president between 2007 and 2012, was convicted of hiding illegal overspending for his unsuccessful re-election campaign that was shaped by vast American-style rallies.
The case was labelled the “Bygmalion” affair because of the name of the events company that organised Sarkozy’s elaborate and artfully filmed stadium gigs in front of thousands of flag-waving fans when he was fighting for re-election. He ultimately lost to the Socialist party’s François Hollande.
In a 2021 trial, the state prosecutor had highlighted Sarkozy’s “couldn’t care less” attitude in demanding one rally a day in the form of vast “American-style shows” and allowing costs to rise substantially above the legal limit for a presidential election campaign.
The prosecution said accountants had warned Sarkozy he was about to pass the official €22.5m spending cap but that he insisted on holding more events to fend off Hollande, who was gaining ground as a “Mr Normal” seeking to crack down on the world of finance.
In the end, Sarkozy’s campaign spending came to at least €42.8m, nearly double the legal limit, prosecutors said.
Sarkozy, who denied all wrongdoing, lodged an appeal process that took several years.
France’s highest court, the Cour de Cassation, which focuses on whether the law has been applied correctly rather than on the facts of the case, has now upheld an earlier ruling, making Sarkozy’s conviction final.
Sarkozy, who was released from prison earlier this month in connection with a separate conviction, will now have to serve his sentence. He had been sentenced on appeal to a one-year prison term, half of which was suspended. That six-month prison term can be served through means such as wearing an electronic tag, without going to jail.
Sarkozy has faced a series of legal challenges since leaving office. He is appealing against his conviction for criminal conspiracy over a scheme to obtain election campaign funds for his 2007 presidential attempt from the regime of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
That is the conviction that in October resulted in him going to in La Santé prison in Paris, where he spent 20 days, an experience he described as “gruelling” and a “nightmare”. He was released on 10 November.
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