The firm part of the sentence imposed on the former head of state (2007-2012), six months, will be adjusted, specified the president of the court while reading her decision, adding that it had “returned to the quantum requested at first instance by the public prosecutor.
Nicolas Sarkozy, who arrived smiling at the courthouse, listened to the decision without reacting, then left the courtroom in a hurry without making any comment, just like his lawyer, Me Vincent Desry.
Sentenced to one year in prison for illegal campaign financing
In September 2021, the Paris criminal court found Nicolas Sarkozy guilty of having significantly exceeded the legal spending limit and sentenced him to one year in prison for illegal campaign financing. However, he requested that this sentence be directly adjusted, at home under electronic surveillance.
The court of appeal also sentenced the nine other people who had also appealed the first instance judgment to sentences of one year in prison suspended to two years in prison including eighteen months suspended, specifying that the six firm month to be carried out could also be arranged.
The attorneys general had requested one year of imprisonment against Sarkozy
She also handed down five-year ineligibility sentences for six of them and bans on managing a company for five years for two others. In this case, investigations revealed that to hide the explosion in his campaign’s expenses – nearly 43 million euros for an authorized maximum of 22.5 million – a double invoicing system had been put in place attributing to the UMP, under cover of fictitious conventions, a large part of the cost of meetings.
Unlike his co-defendants, the former head of state was not accused of this system of false invoices. But, in its judgment, the criminal court had underlined that the former tenant of the Élysée had “continued the organization of” electoral meetings, “requesting one meeting per day”, even though he “had been warned in writing ” of the risk of legal overrun, then of the actual overrun.
During the appeal trial, the attorneys general requested a year’s imprisonment against him, but this time with a suspended sentence.
“Fables” and “lies”
Nicolas Sarkozy had, as during the first trial, “vigorously contested any criminal responsibility”, denouncing “fables” and “lies”.
His lawyer, Me Vincent Desry, had pleaded for his release, ensuring that the former head of state had “never been aware of an excess” of the legal ceiling for electoral expenses and “never incurred any expenses”. He considered that it had been “impossible” for the public prosecutor to “demonstrate the intentional element” nor the “material element” of the alleged offense.
Among those who were part of the UMP, only Jérôme Lavrilleux, at the material time, Jean-François Copé’s chief of staff and deputy director of the presidential campaign team, admitted to having covered up the double invoicing system.
New appearance in 2025
In May 2014, he helped reveal the scandal during a memorable interview with BFMTV. At the helm, however, he denied having been the one who set up the “breakdown system” of electoral expenses. Jérôme Lavrilleux was sentenced to two years of imprisonment, eighteen months of which were suspended, and five years of ineligibility.
This case adds to other legal troubles for Nicolas Sarkozy: he was sentenced last May on appeal in the so-called “Paul Bismuth” wiretapping affair to three years’ imprisonment, one of which was closed, a decision against which he appealed to the Court of Cassation.
He will also appear in 2025 for suspicion of Libyan financing of his 2007 presidential campaign. He was also indicted, at the beginning of October, in the aspect of this affair linked to the retraction of the intermediary Ziad Takieddine.