Former French President Sarkozy loses appeal in corruption case

The Supreme Court of France has rejected the appeal of former President Nicolas Sarkozy and upheld the corruption conviction against him.

Wednesday’s ruling by the Cour de Cassation means Sarkozy – who was in power from 2007 to 2012 – will now have to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet for a year.

Sarkozy, 69, responded by saying he was not prepared to accept a “grave injustice” and would now turn to the European Court of Human Rights to challenge the decision.

He was originally sentenced to three years in prison in 2021, but two of those years were suspended and the third was commuted to electronic monitoring instead of prison.

Sarkozy was convicted in 2014 of trying to bribe a judge after he left office by suggesting he could secure a prestigious job for him in exchange for information on a different case.

In a 2021 ruling, Judge Christine Mee said the conservative politician “knew what (he) was doing was wrong”, adding that his actions and those of his lawyer gave the public “a very poor image of justice”. Was.

The crimes were specified as influence-peddling and violation of professional confidentiality.

After the Court of Cassation’s ruling on Wednesday, Sarkozy’s lawyer Patrice Spinosi said his client would comply with the terms of his sentence.

Sarkozy has now exhausted all his legal options in France, and his planned appeal to the European Court of Human Rights will not delay the implementation of the verdict.

The 2021 sentencing was a legal milestone for post-war France.

The only precedent was the trial of Sarkozy’s predecessor Jacques Chirac, who received a two-year suspended sentence for arranging fake jobs at Paris City Hall for associates while he was Paris mayor in 2011. Chirac died in 2019.