Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy Slams Prison Sentence: “Hatred Truly Knows No Bounds”

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been sentenced to five years in prison after a Paris court found him guilty of criminal conspiracy.

Sarkozy, 70, was alleged to have concocted a scheme to finance his 2007 presidential campaign using funds from late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

Prosecutors argued that in exchange for the funds, Sarkozy had promised to help Gaddafi repair his international image and offered diplomatic favors.

Sarkozy served as president from 2007 to 2012, when he lost a re-election bid.

He was acquitted of other charges against him, such as corruption, misuse of Libyan public funds, and illegal election campaign funding, after the court ruled there was no conclusive proof that he benefited from Libyan cash.

While the court imposed a five-year sentence and ruled that prison time must be served, it allowed for the sentence to be handed down at a later date.

Prosecutors must notify Sarkozy one month in advance of his sentence, which marks the first time in modern France that a former president has been handed jail time.

Sarkozy, who has denied all the charges against him and will appeal, was also ordered to pay a fine of €100,000 ($117,000).

Outside of court on Thursday, Sarkozy told reporters that the sentence imposed on him was a scandal.

“What happened today ... is of extreme gravity in regard to the rule of law, and for the trust one can have in the justice system,” Sarkozy said.

“If they absolutely want me to sleep in prison, I will sleep in prison. But with my head held high. I am innocent. This injustice is a scandal,” he added.

“I ask the French people—whether they voted for me or not, whether they support me or not—to grasp what has just happened. Hatred truly knows no bounds.”

Two longtime allies, former ministers Claude Guéant and Brice Hortefeux, were also convicted of charges relating to the case at the same trial.

Guéant, who was Sarkozy’s presidential campaign director in 2007 before being promoted to chief of staff and interior minister, was found guilty of criminal conspiracy and corruption.

Hortefeux, meanwhile, was found guilty of criminal conspiracy. He also served as interior minister.

Éric Woerth, Sarkozy’s former campaign treasurer who now serves in Emmanuel Macron’s party, was acquitted.

The accusations date back to investigations launched in 2011 after a Libyan news agency and Gaddafi said millions of euros had secretly been donated to Sarkozy’s campaign by the Libyan state.

Gaddafi was killed by Libyan rebels in 2011 after being overthrown.

Businessman Ziad Takieddine in 2016 claimed to have delivered Gaddafi cash to Sarkozy’s team at the French Interior Ministry.

However, he later retracted his statement and an investigation was launched into possible witness tampering, according to CNN.

Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy were preliminarily charged for allegedly being involved in efforts to coerce Takieddine into changing his statement. That case is yet to go to trial.

As well as being suspected of witness tampering, Bruni-Sarkozy has been charged with hiding evidence and associating with wrongdoers to commit fraud.

Takieddine, who fled to Lebanon in 2020, died in Beirut on Tuesday before the verdict.

Sarkozy has previous legal troubles that extend beyond the Libya trial, and has already been stripped of his Legion of Honor distinction.

In 2021, he was convicted of corruption after trying to bribe a judge in 2014, and while he was handed a custodial sentence, an appeals court ruled he could stay at home wearing an electronic tag.

A ruling in 2024 also found that Sarkozy overspent on his 2012 re-election campaign and then hired a PR firm to cover it up.