Nicolas Sarkozy will have to wait until the next Valentine’s Day. It is on February 14, 2024 that the Paris Court of Appeal will deliver its judgment in the Bygmalion case, the second trial of which ended this Thursday. A one-year suspended prison sentence was requested this time against the former President of the Republic. He was sentenced to one year in prison at first instance for excessive spending during his lost 2012 presidential campaign.
Invited at the end of the trial to speak if they wished, neither Nicolas Sarkozy nor the other defendants made a statement, saying they had “nothing to add”.
In this case, in addition to Nicolas Sarkozy, nine people who appealed have been retried since November 8. Unlike his co-defendants, the former head of state is not accused of the system of false invoices designed to hide the explosion in his campaign’s expenses which reached nearly 43 million euros while the legal ceiling was 22.5 million.
“Fables” and “lies”
But, in its first instance judgment, the court had underlined that the former tenant of the Elysée had “continued the organization of electoral meetings”, “requesting one meeting per day”, even though he “had been warned in writing” of the risk of legal overrun, then of the actual overrun.
Before the Court of Appeal, Nicolas Sarkozy, as during the first trial, “vigorously contested any criminal responsibility”, denouncing “fables” and “lies”.
He also accused people close to his then rival at the head of the UMP Jean-François Copé – his chief of staff Jérôme Lavrilleux, deputy director of the campaign team, and the communications agency Bygmalion – of to have enriched themselves. His lawyer, Vincent Desry, pleaded for his release. “Mr. Sarkozy was never aware of an excess” of the legal ceiling for electoral expenses, he “never incurred any expenses”, he assured. The defender of the Former Head of State considered that it had been “impossible” for the public prosecutor to “demonstrate the intentional element” and the “material element” of the alleged offense.
The troubles continue
Against the other defendants, the public prosecutor requested sentences of 18 months to four years of imprisonment, all suspended, as well as fines of 10,000 to 30,000 euros and bans on practicing or ineligibility for some of them. them.
This case adds to other legal troubles for Nicolas Sarkozy: he was sentenced last May in the wiretapping affair to three years’ imprisonment, one of which was closed, a decision against which he appealed to the Court of Cassation.
He will also appear in 2025 for suspicion of Libyan financing of his 2007 presidential campaign. He was also indicted, at the beginning of October, in the aspect of this affair linked to the retraction of the intermediary Ziad Takieddine.