The French court sentenced former President Nicolas Sarkozy (2007-2012) on appeal on Wednesday to three years in prison, including a mandatory one, for corruption and influence peddling in the case of “eavesdropping.” The president appealed the sentence in December without success.
The magistrates of the Paris Court of Appeals imposed the same prison sentence as in the first instance in March 2021. The former conservative president then became the first former president of the Fifth Republic sentenced to firm prison.
Of course, the Paris Court of Appeals has indicated that two of the three years of the sentence are suspended, while the former president will not have to go to prison, since the other year of the final sentence can be served under house arrest. and with an electronic bracelet, as FranceInfo has collected. Sarkozy will also see his civil rights suspended during these three years, so he will not be able to run for elected office.
Judgment against his lawyers
Likewise, his lawyer Thierry Herzog and former magistrate Gilbert Azibert have also been sentenced to three years in prison, while Herzog will be prohibited from practicing his profession during this period. “Herzog and Sarkozy are lawyers and Azibert is a specialist in criminal proceedings. None of the three can claim to be unaware of the offenses committed,” said the president of the court, Sophie Clement.
Sarzoky was sentenced in March 2021 for crimes of corruption and influence peddling after the French Justice considered it proven that he used his position to try to obtain information about an investigation. The Prosecutor’s Office accused the former president of obtaining secret information through Herzog in 2014, for which he would have turned to Azibert, then in the Court of Cassation.
The former president, who governed France between 2007 and 2012, became the first former head of state to physically sit on the defendant’s bench, since although in 2011 his predecessor at the Élysée, Jacques Chirac, was sentenced to two years for crimes committed during his time as mayor of Paris, he never set foot in court for health reasons.
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