Nicolas Sarkozy has another meeting with the courts this Wednesday. The so-called “Bygmalion” affair, on the financing of his presidential campaign lost in 2012, is in fact returning to the Paris Court of Appeal.
In September 2021, the former head of state, tried for having exceeded the legal spending limit for his campaign, was sentenced to one year in prison, the maximum sentence then provided for by law. He immediately announced his intention to appeal, considering this conviction “unjust”.
The system of false invoices does not concern Sarkozy
Unlike his co-defendants, Nicolas Sarkozy is not, however, accused of the system of false invoices itself, designed to hide the explosion in his campaign’s expenses (nearly 43 million euros, while the ceiling legal was 22.5 million).
Twelve former campaign executives, from the UMP or the Bygmalion company, will be retried for complicity in “illegal campaign financing”, but also for forgery, fraud, breach of trust or complicity in these offenses. At the first trial, the court found that they had taken part in setting up a double billing system. Ten of them appealed their criminal convictions, while two others are only contesting the damages inflicted on them. A thirteenth defendant, also found guilty at first instance, did not appeal. A subsidiary of Bygmalion, Event & Cie, was also sentenced.
An excess already sanctioned by the Constitutional Council
At the first instance hearing, only four defendants, including Jérôme Lavrilleux, deputy director of the 2012 campaign, admitted responsibility. Nicolas Sarkozy had denied it outright, ensuring that if there had indeed been “false invoices and fictitious agreements”, “the money had not been in (his) campaign”. According to him, Bygmalion – founded by people very close to his rival Jean-François Copé – had “gluted itself”.
His defense also argued that exceeding the legal ceiling had already been sanctioned by the Constitutional Council, which had rejected his campaign accounts in 2013, and could therefore not be judged again. This argument, rejected by the criminal court, should be argued again before the court of appeal, according to a source close to the case.
Absences noticed at first instance
For this new trial, scheduled to last nearly five weeks, Nicolas Sarkozy will be defended by Thierry Herzog, his long-time lawyer, already present at first instance, and by Vincent Desry. The former head of state, aged 68, should be present for the highlights of the trial, after being singled out for his absence in first instance by the prosecution. He then only traveled on the day of his interrogation and the prosecutor saw this as “total casualness”, demonstrating that the defendant considered himself “above the fray”.