Nicolas Sarkozy loses appeal on corruption conviction

PARIS — A Paris court on Wednesday upheld a three-year prison sentence for former French President Nicolas Sarkozy over corruption charges.

The Paris Court of Appeals confirmed a 2021 first-instance sentence to three years in jail: two of which will be suspended while one will be served under house arrest, wearing an electronic bracelet. The ruling is unprecedented for a former French president. Sarkozy will also be banned from running for public office for three years.

Sarkozy will appeal Wednesday’s decision before France’s top court, the Court of Cassation, French media reported.

The former conservative heavyweight, who served as president from 2007 to 2012, had been convicted for having offered a judge a plum job in exchange for confidential information related to another trial he was facing. His lawyer Thierry Herzog, one of France’s most famous criminal lawyers, and judge Gilbert Azibert were handed down the same three-year sentence at the time.

Corruption allegations against the ex-president surfaced after investigators wiretapped conversations between Sarkozy and Herzog as they were looking into allegations of Libyan financing in Sarkozy’s 2007 campaign. The two discussed contacting Gilbert Azibert, a magistrate at the Court of Cassation, to try to gain information about a separate investigation into whether the ex-president had received donations from L’Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt.

In parallel, Sarkozy is also facing other criminal proceedings.

In 2021, he was sentenced to one year of house arrest over illegal campaign funding — the sentence is also suspended as Sarkozy appealed it before the Paris Court of Appeal, which is set to decide on that case later this year.

Sarkozy could also face a third criminal proceeding as last week a French prosecutor requested judges bring him before a criminal court, accusing him of receiving illegal Libyan financing for his 2007 election campaign.