Sarkozy likely to avoid prison despite verdict
PARIS: Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was handed a one-year prison sentence by a Paris court on Thursday after being found guilty of illegal campaign financing over his failed 2012 re-election bid.
Sarkozy, 66, is unlikely to go to jail. He decided to appeal the sentence, a move that in effect suspends it, and the judge said he could serve the sentence at home with an electronic tag.
The second conviction this year for Sarkozy is a fall from grace for the man who led France from 2007 to 2012 and retains influence among conservatives.
The two convictions could force Sarkozy to play a more discreet role in next year’s presidential election. He had not planned to be a candidate but, as a popular figure on the right, he would be expected to support his party’s candidate.
Sarkozy’s conservative party, prosecutors said, spent nearly double the 22.5 million euros allowed under electoral law on extravagant campaign rallies and then hired a friendly public relations agency to hide the cost.
Sarkozy has denied wrongdoing. He said he was not involved in the logistics of his campaign for a second term as president or in how money was spent during the election run-up.
“Can you imagine me going into a meeting to discuss the cost of flags?” he told the court in June. “I had too much to do.”
“From the moment I was told
things were in order, I had no reason to give it more thought.”
But the court in Paris said Sarkozy was made aware of the overspending, that he did not act on it, and that it was not necessary for him to approve each individual spending to be responsible.
Several others who faces charges were found guilty of fraud over the campaign financing and sentenced to up to three and a half years in jail and hefty fines.
Earlier conviction
Sarkozy was found guilty in a separate trial in March of trying to bribe a judge and peddle influence in order to obtain confidential information on a judicial inquiry.
He has denied any wrongdoing in that case as well.