France top court upholds corruption charges against former president News
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France top court upholds corruption charges against former president

France’s supreme court, the Cour de Cassation, upheld a Paris Court of Appeals ruling on Wednesday, confirming the conviction of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy for corruption and influence peddling, sentencing him to a year under electronic monitoring.

Sarkozy, who served as France’s president from 2007 to 2012, was found guilty in March 2021 by the Paris Correctional Tribunal of attempting to bribe a judge and engaging in influence peddling during his presidency. Sarkozy and his lawyer, Thierry Herzog, were accused of offering bribes to former Court of Cassation magistrate Gilbert Azibert in exchange for confidential information about an ongoing investigation into allegations that Sarkozy had received illegal payments during his 2007 campaign. The court sentenced Sarkozy to three years in jail, with two years suspended and one year to be served under home detention with electronic monitoring.

In October 2021, Sarkozy was also found guilty of illegally financing his 2012 re-election campaign. He appealed both decisions, but the Paris Court of Appeals upheld the three-year prison sentence in the corruption case, with two years suspended.

In Wednesday’s ruling, the Supreme Court rejected defenses citing the European Convention on Human Rights, the French Constitution, the French Code of Criminal Procedure, and the French Criminal Code. Speaking to Euronews, Sarkozy’s lawyer, Patrice Spinosi, announced plans to appeal the case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) within weeks.

On the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, Sarkozy maintained his innocence while acknowledging the consequences of the judgment, which he described as the culmination of “12 years of judicial harassment.” He asserted that his rights as a litigant had been violated under the European Convention on Human Rights, further suggesting that his appeal to the ECHR could ultimately result in “France being condemned”. Sarkozy argued that such an outcome could have been avoided with a more impartial and thorough legal analysis.

Despite the planned appeal to the ECHR, the ruling remains enforceable, as Sarkozy has exhausted all available domestic legal remedies—a necessary prerequisite for the admissibility of a case before the court. Under the court’s procedural framework, applicants must first exhaust all domestic avenues of redress before lodging an appeal. In this context, the articulation of complaints grounded in violations of the European Convention on Human Rights constitutes a critical component of the submission process.

Sarkozy is also set to face an additional hearing regarding accusations of illegal financing for his 2007 campaign from Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi. The trial will take place between January 6, 2025, and April 10, 2025, in the 32nd chamber of the Paris Criminal Court. Sarkozy denies all wrongdoing.

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