Did Bruni-Sarkozy help her husband?
France’s ex-first lady questioned in election campaign affair
May 2, 2024, 3:22 p.m
France’s former President Sarkozy will have to stand trial in 2025 because he is said to have received money from Libya for his 2007 election campaign. His wife is now also in the investigators’ sights. She is said to have deleted incriminating messages.
Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, wife of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, is suspected of illegally supporting her current husband in an affair involving alleged campaign funds from Libya. For the first time, the singer was not questioned as a witness, but as a suspect, as we learned from judicial circles.
The trial against Sarkozy and several other suspects, which has been ongoing since October 2023, concerns the statements of the Franco-Lebanese middleman Ziad Takieddine. This initially incriminated Sarkozy. He had testified in court that he had handed over suitcases full of cash from former Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi to Sarkozy in 2006 and 2007. Takieddine later surprisingly withdrew his statements. The judiciary is investigating Sarkozy and his PR advisor Michèle Marchand for witness bribery.
Sarkozy’s wife, who was only heard as a witness in 2023, has now come under suspicion herself: the investigators noticed that Bruni-Sarkozy had deleted all the messages that she had exchanged with the PR consultant – shortly before the judiciary opened proceedings against him the PR consultant initiated. The conservative politician’s numerous judicial affairs have preoccupied France for years.
Numerous court cases against Sarkozy
Sarkozy was sentenced in February to one year in prison, including six months probation, for exceeding his 2012 campaign costs. The verdict is not yet legally binding. In May 2023, an appeals court sentenced him to three years in prison, two of which were suspended, for bribing a judge. Sarkozy also appealed against this verdict. The financing of his first, successful presidential election campaign in 2007 resulted in several legal proceedings.
In January 2025 he will have to stand trial because he is suspected of having received 50 million euros from Gaddafi for his election campaign. Sarkozy rejects this. Sarkozy is the first former French president to be sentenced to prison for crimes committed after his term in office. During their term in office, French presidents are protected from prosecution by their official immunity.