The Paris Court of Appeal on Wednesday sentenced Nicolas Sarkozy on appeal to one year of imprisonment including six months suspended in the so-called “Bygmalion” case on excessive spending during his lost 2012 presidential campaign.
The firm part of the sentence imposed on the former president (2007-2012) will be adjusted, specified the president of the court while reading her decision.
In September 2021, the Paris criminal court found Mr. Sarkozy guilty of having significantly exceeded the legal spending limit and sentenced him to one year in prison for illegal financing of an electoral campaign.
The court, however, requested that this sentence be directly modified, at home under electronic surveillance.
Thirteen other people were also sentenced to sentences of up to three and a half years in prison, part of which was suspended.
Nicolas Sarkozy and nine other people appealed and were retried from November 8 to December 7.
In this case, investigations revealed that to hide the explosion in his campaign’s expenses – nearly 43 million euros for an authorized maximum of 22.5 million – a system of double invoicing had been put in place attributing to the party policy of Nicolas Sarkozy, under the cover of fictitious conventions, a large part of the cost of the meetings.
Unlike his co-defendants, the former head of state is not accused of this system of false invoices.
Nicolas Sarkozy, as during the first trial, “vigorously contested any criminal responsibility”, denouncing “fables” and “lies”.
His lawyer, Me Vincent Desry pleaded for his release, ensuring that the former head of state had “never been aware of an excess” of the legal ceiling for electoral expenses and “never incurred any expenses”.
He considered that it had been “impossible” for the public prosecutor to “demonstrate the intentional element” nor the “material element” of the alleged offense.