France’s highest court on Wednesday upheld a conviction against former President Nicolas Sarkozy for illegally financing his unsuccessful 2012 re-election campaign by hugely exceeding the country’s strict electoral spending limits.
The Paris-based Court of Cassation confirmed a verdict issued by an appeals court in February 2024, which had sentenced Mr. Sarkozy to six months of house arrest. The original verdict determined that Mr. Sarkozy’s campaign had spent more than €42 million, or about $50 million, almost twice higher than what was allowed under French law.
The decision on Wednesday compounded the growing list of legal problems that Mr. Sarkozy has faced since ending his five-year term as president in 2012. He has been charged in at least four cases, most involving fraud charges. Mr. Sarkozy spent 20 days in jail in October and November — the first former president imprisoned in France in decades — after a separate conviction related to financing his 2007 election campaign.
Although the conviction on Wednesday nominally would require Mr. Sarkozy to spend six months under house arrest wearing an ankle bracelet, he may ultimately face few restrictions. Mr. Sarkozy turned 70 in January; in France, convicts over 70 can ask for less-restrictive arrangements.
Though Mr. Sarkozy left office more than a decade ago, his legal travails have attracted widespread attention in France, partly because he still retained a degree of political influence in center-right politics. The latest episodes in his legal battles have even provided Mr. Sarkozy — a forceful personality with an instinct for political theater — with further opportunities for publicity.
Last week, Mr. Sarkozy announced he would soon publish a book, “The Diary of a Prisoner,” about the 20 days he recently served in jail for attempting to fund his 2007 election bid with help from the government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the former Libyan strongman.
In that case, Mr. Sarkozy was originally sentenced to a five-year term but was granted a conditional release after he filed an appeal.
“In prison, there is nothing to see and nothing to do,” Mr. Sarkozy wrote on social media in a message advertising the book. “Noise there is, alas, constant. But, like in the desert, inner life grows stronger in prison.”
Mr. Sarkozy’s fate has startled the country, led some judges on the case to be targeted with death threats and prompted an intense debate on judicial independence.
The debate has pitted those on the French right, who said Mr. Sarkozy had been sentenced for political reasons, against those on the left who said the sentencing reflected the judges’ impartiality.
The former president — who was stripped of the Legion of Honor, France’s highest distinction — has rejected all the charges and repeatedly lashed out at the judges and journalists investigating his cases.
According to French news media, he has portrayed himself as the Count of Monte Cristo, the hero of a well-known French novel, who spends his life avenging an injustice. (That and a biography of Jesus were the only books Mr. Sarkozy brought with him to jail, according to French news reports.)
“The former occupant of the Élysée Palace has thus become the promoter of a new figure, that of the unjustly imprisoned president-writer,” François Hourmant, a political science professor, told the French daily Le Monde.
Mr. Sarkozy has drawn interest from across the political spectrum. President Emmanuel Macron of France, who won Mr. Sarkozy’s support during the latest presidential election, met with his predecessor days before he was jailed, while stating that he was not attempting to pick sides in the case. Jordan Bardella, the leader of the far-right National Rally party — who shares the same publisher as Mr. Sarkozy — said the judges’ decision to send him to jail reflected a desire to humiliate the former president. Gérald Darmanin, the justice minister and a former aide of Mr. Sarkozy, visited him in prison.
Lawyers filed a complaint against Mr. Darmanin for taking sides, and in a rare public statement, Rémy Heitz, the prosecutor for the Court of Cassation, said the visit risked undermining the independence of judges.
Ségolène Le Stradic is a reporter and researcher covering France.
The post France’s Ex-President Loses Graft Appeal, Weeks After He Was Jailed in Separate Case appeared first on New York Times.
