France’s top court upholds Sarkozy’s conviction for illegal campaign financing in 2012

PARIS (AP) — France’s top court on Wednesday upheld Nicolas Sarkozy’s conviction for illegal campaign financing of his reelection bid in 2012 in another blow to France’s former president’s legacy and reputation.

The decision by the Court of Cassation makes definitive Sarkozy’s conviction to a year in prison, half of it suspended, for fraudulently overspending on the failed campaign.

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Under French law the sentence can be served at home, monitored with an electronic bracelet or other requirements set by a judge.

The decision comes just two weeks after his release from prison pending an appeal in another campaign financing case. Sarkozy, 70, was incarcerated for 20 days in Paris’ La Santé prison, after judges convicted him of scheming to get secret financing from Libya in his winning campaign for the French presidency in 2007. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Here’s what to know about Wednesday’s decision and other legal proceedings involving Sarkozy.

Ruling’s meaning

A Paris court in 2021 and an appeals court in 2024 convicted Sarkozy of illegal campaign financing in 2012. He’s accused of having spent almost twice the maximum legal amount of 22.5 million euros ($25.5 million) on the reelection bid that he lost to François Hollande, a socialist.

Sarkozy’s conviction is now considered definitive by French law, with no further appeal possible.

France’s top court isn’t reexamining the entire case, but instead is verifying that the law and proceedings’ rules were properly applied.

The Court of Cassation said in a statement Wednesday that it “upholds the appeals’ court decision convicting a presidential candidate, his campaign manager and two directors of the political party supporting him for illegal campaign financing.”

Libya case

Sarkozy’s appeal trial in the Libya case is scheduled to run from March 16 to June 3.

In September, a Paris court found him guilty of criminal association in a plot from 2005 to 2007, when he served as interior minister, to finance his winning presidential campaign with funds from Libya in exchange for diplomatic favors. It sentenced him to five years in prison.

Sarkozy was cleared of three other charges, including passive corruption, illegal campaign financing and concealing the embezzlement of public funds.

The court found that two of Sarkozy’s closest associates held secret meetings in 2005 with Abdullah al-Senoussi, the brother-in-law and intelligence chief of longtime Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi.

Gadhafi was toppled and killed in an uprising in 2011, ending his four-decade rule of the North African country. Al-Senoussi is considered the mastermind of attacks on a Pan Am jumbo jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 and a French airliner over Niger the following year — causing hundreds of deaths. In 2003, Libya took responsibility for both plane bombings.

Prison memoir

Sarkozy is publishing a book on Dec. 10 about his recent time behind bars, titled “Diary of a Prisoner.”

He described prison as “a nightmare.”

“I had never imagined I would experience prison at 70. This ordeal was imposed on me, and I lived through it. It’s hard, very hard,” Sarkozy said during a court hearing on his release.

In a post on X, he said that “the noise is, unfortunately, constant” and that “the inner life of man becomes stronger in prison.”

Witness tampering

French investigative judges filed preliminary charges in 2023 against Sarkozy for his alleged involvement in a possible attempt to clear him in the Libya financing case by pressuring a witness.

In 2016, French-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine said that he had delivered suitcases filled with cash from Tripoli to France’s Interior Ministry under Sarkozy. He later retracted his statement.

Financial prosecutors said that Sarkozy is suspected of “benefitting from corruptly influencing a witness,” in reference to Takieddine.

Sarkozy’s wife, former supermodel Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, was given preliminary charges in July 2024 for alleged involvement in efforts to pressure Takieddine. Bruni-Sarkozy was placed under judicial supervision, which includes a ban on contact with all those involved in the proceedings except for her husband.

Investigative magistrates still have to decide whether they send the couple to trial on these charges.

Takieddine died in September in Beirut.

Previous conviction

Sarkozy’s criminal records register one definitive conviction for corruption and influence peddling while he was the country’s head of state.

Last year, the Court of Cassation upheld an appeals court decision that had found Sarkozy guilty of trying to bribe a magistrate in exchange for information about legal proceedings in which he was involved. The case was revealed through wiretapped phone conversations during the Libya financing investigation.

Sarkozy was sentenced to a year in prison, but he was entitled to be detained at home with an electronic bracelet. He was granted conditional release in May because of his age, which allowed him to remove the electronic tag after just over three months.

He was stripped of his Legion of Honor medal, France’s highest distinction, following his conviction in that case.