The former president of France, the “hyper-president”, has gone to prison, the latest twist in a career filled with drama and scandal
Nicolas Sarkozy was at the top of French politics for only five years, but he left behind a long and ugly trail of corruption allegations. Eight years after retiring from politics, he remains influential, a trusted adviser to Emmanuel Macron, who turned to the fiery figure of the right when his centrist liberalism was struggling in the face of attacks from Marine Le Pen’s party. “The right has not yet found someone to replace him,” said one insider. Yet this pillar of the French state ended up under house arrest, with an electronic ankle bracelet, after a conviction for trying to bribe a judge. In another case, he was accused of excessive spending during his unsuccessful 2012 presidential campaign.
But all of this pales in comparison to the Libyan campaign finance saga: allegations that he signed a corruption pact with former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to receive millions of euros for his 2007 campaign. On Thursday, he was sentenced to five years in prison for “criminal conspiracy” but was acquitted of other charges, including corruption. However, he is likely to soon leave the comfort of his home, where he lives with his third wife, the model and singer Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, for a prison cell. “The story is so crazy and complicated that it was hard to believe,” a French journalist told The Independent. “It is a very serious matter; there has been nothing else like it.”
FROM GADDAFI TO THE ÉLYSÉE PALACE
For years, Gaddafi was an internationally ostracized leader, linked to sponsoring terrorist attacks, including the 1989 downing of a French DC-10 airliner in Niger, which killed 170 people, including 40 French citizens. But after the September 11 attacks, the Libyan dictator embarked on a campaign to gain international respect. And he succeeded. In 2007, two months after Sarkozy was elected, Gaddafi pitched his tent in the gardens of the Élysée Palace, blocking Paris traffic with 100 of his limousines, angering French citizens.
To those horrified by the invitation, Sarkozy said it was a gesture of gratitude for the release of several Bulgarian nurses unjustly imprisoned in Libya. But the Paris court heard a very different story: the truth was extremely dirty and dangerous. According to prosecutors, in the face of strict restrictions on campaign financing, Sarkozy found a secret way out: massive funding from a source that no one would suspect. “Behind the public image, the investigations reveal a man driven by unlimited personal ambition, ready to sacrifice honesty, integrity and morality on the altar of power,” prosecutors said.
A CAREER BUILT ON AMBITION AND SPECTACLE
Sarkozy is the son of a Hungarian refugee aristocrat and a mother of mixed Catholic and Sephardic Jewish descent. He did not have the classical education of the French elite: he studied modestly and became a lawyer. But as a teenager, he was driven by a burning political ambition. A charismatic figure, he was the first French politician to own television. An early step towards the ascent was the post of mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine, a wealthy Parisian suburb, where he won the protection of Jacques Chirac. But he showed his ruthless instincts when he turned against Chirac, supporting a rival in the 2002 presidential election.
After the failure, he returned to Neuilly – and shocked the country in 1993, when he became the hero of a real-life hostage drama, rescuing 21 children held by a terrorist in a kindergarten. He went in himself, negotiated with the perpetrator and brought the children out unharmed in his arms, one by one. From there, he never stopped.
Under Chirac’s presidency, Sarkozy took on the dangerous post of interior minister. In this role, he visited Gaddafi’s tent in Tripoli – to discuss illegal immigration, but also, according to prosecutors, to seal a dirty deal with the Libyan leader. His private life was no less turbulent: while mayor he fell in love with Cecilia Ciganer-Albeniz, the bride at a wedding he was officiating; he later married her. Soon after the breakup, he fell in love with Carla Bruni at a dinner party and married her shortly after. From his three marriages, Sarkozy has three sons and a daughter.
EVIDENCE AND PROCESS
In the latest trial, prosecutors presented a mountain of circumstantial evidence: testimony from Franco-Lebanese broker Ziad Takieddine that he had brought 5 million euros in three suitcases from Tripoli to Paris; the rental of a large bank safe by Sarkozy’s chief of staff; and payments of 250 euros in cash to campaign workers. Takieddine died in Beirut two days before the verdict was announced. The court found Sarkozy guilty of criminal conspiracy, in a scheme that operated from 2005 to 2007 to finance his campaign with funds from Libya in exchange for diplomatic favors.
He was acquitted of three other charges, including passive corruption, illegal campaign financing and concealing the misuse of public funds. Sarkozy vehemently denied any wrongdoing and stressed that, even after a decade of investigations, “no direct evidence has been found.”
“It’s a conspiracy,” he said in court. “Ten years of slander, 48 hours in custody, 60 hours of interrogation, ten years of investigation, four months of trial… but you will never, ever find a single euro that I received from Libya, not a single cent.” The situation is also complicated by the behavior of key witnesses. In 2012, Takieddine claimed to have evidence that Libya had poured over 50 million euros into Sarkozy’s campaign, but in 2020 he retracted his statements – according to the newspaper Libération, prompted by Sarkozy’s allies, including Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, who is facing witness tampering charges.
