Add thelocalreport.in As A Trusted Source
Finsects president Nicolas Sarkozy He was at the pinnacle of French politics for only five years, but left behind a long and sordid trail of corruption allegations.
Eight years after retiring from politics, the man known as the “Hyper-President” remains influential, a trusted adviser to Emmanuel Macron, who turned to the radical right as his centrist liberalism weakened under attack from Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party. “The right wing couldn’t find anyone to replace him,” said one insider.
Yet it is a pillar of the French state Has begun a five-year prison sentence for his role in a conspiracy For illegally raising campaign funds from Libya. On Tuesday morning, he turned his Paris home – where he lives with his third wife, model and singer-songwriter Carla Bruni-Sarkozy – into a prison cell.
In a separate case he was accused of excessive spending in his unsuccessful 2012 presidential campaign. But these and other scandals are dwarfed by the Libyan campaign-finance saga: allegations that he struck a corruption deal with the late Libyan leader muammar gaddafi To receive millions of euros in cash for his 2007 presidential campaign.
Sarkozy was acquitted of all other charges in the case, including corruption.
“The story is so strange and complicated that it was hard to believe,” said a French journalist who followed the case. Independent“This is a very serious matter; nothing else like this has happened.”
Gaddafi has been an international criminal for years sponsoring terrorist attacks, including the downing of a French DC-10 over Niger in 1989, killing all 170 people on board, 40 of whom were French. But after the September 11 attacks, the Libyan strongman made a sustained bid for international respect.
And this happened. In 2007, two months into Sarkozy’s presidency, Gaddafi pitched his tent in the garden of the Elysee Palace, disrupting Paris traffic with 100 of his limousines and angering many French citizens. For many French voters stunned by the invitation, Sarkozy explained it as a sign of recognition of Gaddafi, who had agreed to free a group of Bulgarian nurses jailed in Libya on trumped-up charges. However, the Paris court was told that the truth was almost unbelievably cheap and careless.
How did a politician with immense ambition manage to gain an edge over his rivals when campaign donations were strictly controlled? Prosecutors claimed that Sarkozy’s response was to obtain massive amounts of money from a source that no one would suspect.
“Behind the public image, the investigation reveals a man driven by extreme personal ambition, willing to sacrifice integrity, honesty and honesty at the altar of power,” prosecutors said.
Sarkozy is the son of an aristocratic Hungarian refugee and his mother was of mixed Catholic and Sephardic Jewish background. He had none of the classical education of the French political elite. He received a modest education and qualified as a barrister. But from his teenage years he was driven by fierce political ambition, despite his outsider background or small stature, which led him to be called “the little Sarkozy”.
A charismatic showman, Sarkozy was the first French politician to master television. An early step up the ladder was to become mayor of the affluent Paris suburb of Neuilly, a position in which he enjoyed the patronage of the Prime Minister at the time, Jacques Chirac.
He showed his ruthless tendencies when he attacked Chirac while supporting a rival for the presidency in 2002; When that ploy failed, he returned to Neuilly – and in 1993 shocked the nation by becoming the hero of a real-life hostage drama in which 21 Neuilly infants were held by a terrorist in their kindergarten.
Bypassing professional negotiators, he entered the school, spoke directly to the culprit, and one by one brought all the children out in his arms. He never looked back.
Winning the presidency in 2002, Chirac appointed his trusted former protégé to the high-risk role of interior minister. Thus, Sarkozy made his fateful visit to Gaddafi’s tent in Tripoli – to discuss illegal immigration but also, prosecutors claimed, to fulfill his agreement with the Libyan leader.
Also in Neuilly he fell in love with the bride Cecilia Ciganer-Albéniz at a wedding organized by him as mayor, after which he betrayed the groom and married her. His second wife, Cecilia Sarkozy, became his closest political adviser until their marriage broke down in 2007 on the eve of his presidency.
Almost immediately, Sarkozy was back in the newspaper headlines, falling in love with Carla Bruni at a dinner party and marrying her shortly afterwards. His three marriages produced three sons and one daughter.
For his latest trial, prosecutors gathered a huge amount of circumstantial evidence, including Franco-Lebanese middleman Ziad Takieddine’s claim that he brought €5m (£4.4m) in three suitcases from Tripoli to Paris, the renting of a very large safe in a Paris bank by Sarkozy’s then-chief of staff, and the transfer of cash to campaign workers. To pay €250,000 in bonuses. Takieddine died in Beirut two days before this week’s verdict.
The court on Thursday found Sarkozy guilty of criminal conspiracy in a scheme he operated from 2005 to 2007 to finance his campaign with money from Libya in exchange for diplomatic favors. But he was acquitted of three other charges, including passive corruption, illegal campaign financing and concealing embezzlement of public funds.
Sarkozy had vehemently denied wrongdoing and pointed to the fact that after years of investigation no smoking gun had been found.
“This is a conspiracy,” he told the court. “Ten years of defamation, 48 hours in police custody, 60 hours of interrogation, 10 years of investigation, four months before the court… [but] you will never get a euro [that I have taken] From Libya, not even one percent.”
Further muddying the waters is the behavior of key witnesses. In 2012, middleman Takidin claimed it had evidence that Libya had invested more than €50m in Sarkozy’s campaign, but then in 2020 withdrew its claims – having been prompted to do so. Freedom The newspaper accused Sarkozy’s allies, including Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, who is on bail, of witness tampering.