French justice returns to strike the former president Nicolas Sarkozy, at the center of what is known as the “Bygmalion Case” on the illicit financing practices of the failed election campaign for the Elysée in 2012. The former president and some members of his staff were accused of having adopted a double billing system aimed at hiding electoral costs that greatly exceeded the legal ceiling established by law. Already convicted in the first instance, today Sarkozy received the second blow from the Court of Appeal which, with a 244-page ruling, confirmed the verdict of the previous court.
Sarkozy’s punishment
The former president will have to serve a one-year prison sentence, half of which on probation. Furthermore, Sarkozy will have the possibility to serve the remaining part of the sentence through alternative measures, which will be defined by a judge within a maximum of 30 days. In all likelihood under house arrest and with an electronic bracelet. It is not the only judicial case for Sarkò: already convicted on appeal for telephone wiretapping, another trial awaits him in 2025 for the 2011 election campaign7 (from which he emerged victorious) and whose suspicions lead all the way to Gaddafi’s Libya.
The sentence
According to the judges, despite having been informed that the spending limit had been exceeded, Sarkozy continued to organize electoral events, thus ignoring the warnings, to the point of spending something like 43 million euros (almost double the 22.5 million maximum threshold). The former president has denied all charges, saying he was dragged into a whirlwind of “fairy tales and lies”. “The Court of Appeal ruling is highly questionable,” he said Vincent Desry. “Nicolas Sarkozy he is completely innocent of the facts of which he is accused.” His lawyers have made it known that they will appeal to the Supreme Court.
The double billing mechanism at the heart of the scandal involved theUMPthe presidential party of the time, and the communications company Bygmalion, which had been instructed to issue fictitious invoices to hide the excess expenses as if they had been incurred for the party and not directly for Sarkozy.
Other convictions
The sentence also affected other figures: Jérôme Lavrilleuxformer deputy campaign manager, ea Guillaume Lambert, former director, were sentenced to two years in prison, of which 18 months suspended. Bygmalion executives Franck Attal and Guy Alves also received similar sentences.