Former president Nicolas Sarkozy has been sentenced to 5 years in prison (not just an electronic ankle bracelet, which he’s been wearing for some time now) for his part in the illegal financing of his presidential campaign with the aid of the Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine, who avoided prison by dying the day before yesterday. Also sentenced were former ministers Claude Guéant, Brice Hortefeux, and Eric Woerth. [CORRECTION: The charges against Woerth were dismissed.] Sarkozy continues to proclaim his innocence, with characteristic defiance.
If the courts absolutely insist that I sleep in prison, then sleep in prison I shall. … This injustice is a scandal. I’ll probably have to appear in handcuffs before the court of appeals. The people who hate me so much think they will be humiliating me, but what they have humiliated today is France, it’s the image of France.
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I think that you need to rectify your post as the illegal financing charge itself has been dismissed along with all other charges except that of an illegal conspiracy for which he is convicted. Even I (full disclosure, I was the official representative of his socialist opponent in a foreign country in 2007) am somewhat surprised by the severity of today’s judgment, although I hasten to make the point that neither Ségolène Royal who ran unsuccessfully against Sarkozy in 2007 nor François Hollande who ran successfully against Sarkozy in 2012 have ever been accused of anything, not even a misdemeanor. In other words there are totally decent people in French politics even if not all are, one other in the decent camp that I could for instance name is Ms Yaël Braun Pivet who is President of Parliament.