In a landmark decision, a Paris court on Thursday found Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s former president, guilty of a criminal conspiracy. The charge stems from accusations that he sought funding for his 2007 presidential campaign from the government of then-Libyan strongman Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.
The court handed Mr. Sarkozy, a conservative who led France from 2007 to 2012, a five-year prison sentence. Crucially, the court ruled that this incarceration would commence in the coming weeks, irrespective of any appeals – a stringent measure unprecedented for a former French head of state in modern history.
A visibly stern Mr. Sarkozy, flanked by his legal team and wife at the courthouse, declared, “If they absolutely want me to sleep in prison, I will sleep in prison, but with my head high.” He vehemently labeled the ruling a “scandal” and immediately announced his intention to challenge it.
“Those who hate me so much think that they are humiliating me,” he further stated. “But those they have humiliated are France and its image.”
The verdict, met with gasps from some in the courtroom, represents perhaps the most severe and damaging blow yet to Mr. Sarkozy’s already tarnished legacy.
This isn’t his first conviction, nor his first prison sentence. Since leaving office, he has faced guilty verdicts for corruption, influence peddling, and campaign spending violations in various other cases. He was even stripped of France’s highest honor, the Legion of Honor.
Yet, until now, through a series of appeals and other legal maneuvers, he had managed to remain free. Despite no longer holding public office, he continues to be a respected figure on the right with considerable political sway.
However, Thursday’s ruling dramatically changed his fate. For the first time, it became a distinct possibility that Mr. Sarkozy, now 70, would serve actual prison time, even if not the full five years. This is a particularly humiliating outcome for a politician who built his career on an image of being tough on crime.
Since 1945, only one other former French head of state, Jacques Chirac, had been found guilty by a court of law. Chirac was convicted in 2011 for misusing public funds during his tenure as mayor of Paris.
But in France, no former president has ever actually spent time behind bars.
Prosecutors had painted Mr. Sarkozy as a central figure in a “Faustian corruption pact” with Libyan officials. They alleged that money was funneled into his 2007 campaign through a convoluted network of bank and cash transfers, offshore accounts, and fraudulent transactions.
In exchange, prosecutors claimed, Libya sought economic agreements, diplomatic recognition, and potentially French assistance in quashing an arrest warrant against a high-ranking Libyan official linked to the 1989 bombing of a French airliner that claimed 171 lives.
Between 2005 and 2007, when Mr. Sarkozy served as interior minister, his top aides made multiple trips to Libya, meeting with senior Libyan officials. This period coincided with the Qaddafi government’s efforts to shed its international pariah status. Two of these aides, Claude Guéant and Brice Hortefeux, were also convicted of criminal conspiracy in this case.
The court determined that Mr. Sarkozy and his aides conspired to solicit funds – an act sufficient for a conspiracy conviction under French law. However, it found insufficient evidence that these funds actually reached the campaign’s coffers.
Nathalie Gavarino, the presiding judge, in her 400-page ruling, stated that Mr. Sarkozy had permitted his top aides, acting under his authority and “in his name,” to “obtain or try to obtain” funding from Libya.
Judge Gavarino acknowledged evidence of Libyan funds transferring to France in 2006, but noted their “opaque” path, and the court found no concrete proof of their direct use in Mr. Sarkozy’s campaign. Furthermore, no evidence of a direct agreement between Mr. Sarkozy and Colonel el-Qaddafi, who was killed during a 2011 uprising, was presented.
Consequently, Mr. Sarkozy was acquitted of charges related to illegal campaign financing, concealing the misappropriation of public funds, and passive corruption (receiving money or favors).
Nevertheless, Ms. Gavarino emphasized that there was ample evidence that Mr. Sarkozy and several of his aides had conspired in “corruption at the highest possible level” — an “extremely serious” act she stated would inevitably “undermine citizens’ confidence in those who represent them.”
“These facts make it necessary to impose a prison sentence,” she declared, noting that the court imposed a slightly lighter sentence than the seven years prosecutors had requested.
Image: Mr. Sarkozy welcoming Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan strongman, in Paris in 2007.
This verdict culminates a complex, decade-long case marked by numerous twists. Just days before the decision, Ziad Takieddine, a French-Lebanese businessman and a key defendant who claimed to have personally delivered millions for Mr. Sarkozy’s campaign, died of a heart attack.
In 2023, Mr. Sarkozy himself was placed under formal investigation for allegedly benefiting from witness tampering, following accusations that his allies pressured Mr. Takieddine to retract his previous claims.
Mr. Sarkozy had consistently denied any corrupt pact, asserting that the accusations were primarily fueled by Colonel el-Qaddafi’s allies seeking retribution. Under Sarkozy’s leadership, France played a significant role in the NATO-led airstrike campaign that ultimately led to Qaddafi’s overthrow and death at the hands of Libyan rebels.
Mr. Sarkozy’s legal team also highlighted that the investigation, which began in 2013, failed to find conclusive evidence that Libya had indeed sent millions, despite claims from some former Libyan officials.
This wasn’t Mr. Sarkozy’s first run-in with the law.
In 2021, he was found guilty of attempting to obtain information from a judge regarding a separate court case against him, a ruling that was later upheld on appeal. He served several months of a one-year sentence under house arrest with an electronic bracelet, which he was permitted to remove this year after turning 70, an age at which France allows convicts to request conditional parole.
He was also convicted in 2021 for illegally financing his unsuccessful 2012 re-election campaign, which far exceeded France’s strict spending limits. That particular case is currently in the appeals process.
Sandra Cossart, head of Sherpa, an anti-corruption advocacy group and one of the plaintiffs, praised Thursday’s verdict as both severe and just. She pointed out France’s historical leniency towards white-collar crime.
“It’s a historic decision,” Ms. Cossart remarked. “I hope it marks the end of a certain way of doing politics.”