On Monday 31st March 2021, after three months of deliberation, the 32nd chamber of the criminal court in Paris found former French president Nicolas Sarkozy guilty of corruption and influence peddling in a case known as the 'Paul Bismuth affair'. It is the first time in French legal history that a former president of the Republic has been convicted on such serious charges, which can attract up to ten years in prison.
Nicolas Sarkozy himself was given a three-year prison sentence, two of them suspended, though it is not clear whether he will in fact serve time in jail. His friend and lawyer Thierry Herzog was also found guilty of corruption and given the same sentence, as was former judge Gilbert Azibert. Herzog, who was also found guilty of breaching professional confidentiality, was banned from practising as a lawyer for five years.
After the verdict Nicolas Sarkozy's lawyer Jacqueline Laffont said that her client would be appealing against the conviction. She described the verdict as “extremely severe” and “completely baseless and unjustified”. Jacqueline Laffont said her client was “calm but determined to continue to demonstrate his innocence”.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
The court thus found the former president guilty of having used his friend and lawyer Thierry Herzog and Azibert, at the time a senior judge in the top appeal court the Cour de Cassation, in order to illegally obtain information in 2014 on judicial investigations that were being carried out. In return he agreed to support Azibert's candidacy for a desirable post in Monaco.
At the time Gilbert Azibert kept them informed about developments in the Bettencourt affair in which Sarkozy had been cleared and in relation to which he was appealing to get his official diaries returned, pleading presidential immunity. But Azibert also informed them about the close interest that the Cour de Justice de la République (CJR) – which tries ministers accused of crimes in the exercise of their official duties – had in the diaries in relation to the proceedings against former finance minister Christine Lagarde in the so-called Tapie affair.
“The proof of the corruption pact emerges from a convergence of serious, precise and consistent evidence resulting from the very close links of friendship forged between the protagonists, from business affairs that reinforced these links - Mr Thierry Herzog was Mr Nicolas Sarkozy's lawyer - from common interests leading towards the same goal, that of obtaining a decision favourable to Mr Nicolas Sarkozy's interests, and some telephone taps demonstrated the acts carried out and the recompense that was offered,” said court president Christine Mée said, reading the court's judgement.
“It has been established that privileged and confidential information was sent in a hidden way in breach of the rights of other parties and of judges' ethics and that this transmission was facilitated by the duties of the principal advocate general at the Cour de Cassation, Gilbert Azibert, who was perfectly aware that he was failing in his duty of probity. Mr Thierry Herzog and Mr Nicolas Sarkozy were aware of the unlawfulness of the acts carried out by Mr Gilbert Azibert and of the confidential nature of the information received,” the judgement continued.
“The crimes of which the defendants have been found guilty have seriously harmed public trust by instilling the notion in public opinion that proceedings in the Cour de Cassation do not always proceed on the basis of opposing debate in front of independent judges but can be the subject of hidden arrangements aimed at satisfying private interests,” said court president Christine Mée.
“Such behaviour can only seriously damage the legitimate confidence that each citizen has the right to place in the justice system. As this corruption seriously damages the rule of law and legal certainty, it demands a firm penal response in a manner that is appropriate to this damage to public trust.
“The actions for which Mr Nicolas Sarkozy has been found guilty are particularly serious, having been committed by a former president of the Republic who was the guarantor of the independence of the justice system,” continued the judge.
“He used his status of former president of the Republic and the political and diplomatic relationships that he had developed when he was in office to reward a judge, serving his personal interests. What is more, Mr Nicolas Sarkozy is a lawyer and was thus perfectly aware of the ethical obligations of this profession.
“Given that the seriousness of the offences committed have greatly harmed public trust, and given the personality of the person who carried them out, a prison term is essential and any other criminal punishment is clearly inadequate.”
At the end of the trial on December 8th 2020 prosecutors from the financial crimes prosecution unit the Parquet National Financier (PNF) had called for a four-year prison sentence, two suspended, for the former president and for Gilbert Azibert, and the same punishment plus a five-year professional ban for Thierry Herzog.
The PNF had highlighted the damning nature of the telephone taps which they said showed interference in the courts of justice and “entryism” in the Cour de Cassation itself. “When justice is not done it is a source of evil that doesn't go away,” the prosecutor Jean-Luc Blachon had told the court then. And he had added: “We can't allow an ex-president to forget about the Republic.”
Lawyers representatives Nicolas Sarkozy, Thierry Herzog and Gilbert Azibert had called for all three to be acquitted, denouncing it as an “empty” case that rested solely on “assumptions” and was also based on illegal phone taps. The former head of state had portrayed himself as the victim of a political process, and attacked the “lies” ranged against him.
Nicolas Sarkozy's predecessor as president, Jacques Chirac, was also convicted by the courts but over less serious matters. On December 15th 2011 he was given a two-year suspended jail term in a case involving fictitious jobs at city hall in Paris. The former president, then 79, who had been mayor of Paris, had been found guilty of abuse of trust, embezzling public funds and an illegal conflict of interest. He had used taxpayers money from Paris to fund several jobs of individuals who worked either at the headquarters of Chirac's party the RPR or directly for the right-wing candidate at the presidential election.
Predictably, many of Nicolas Sarkozy's supporters on the Right came to his defence after Monday's judgement, attacking what some saw as the “judicial hounding” of the former president by the PNF in particular, even if some of them were hard to contact and observed what critics saw as an embarrassed silence over the verdict.
“Unswerving support for Nicolas Sarkozy,” Tweeted Christian Jacob, the president of the former president's right-wing party Les Républicains (LR). “The severity of the punishment is absolutely disproportionate and reveals the judicial hounding by an institution that's already very contentious.”
The LR Member of Parliament Annie Genevard, who is vice-president of the National Assembly, said she was “astounded” by the judgement. Her colleague Jean-Pierre Door called the verdict “disproportionate” and “scandalous”.
Xavier Bertrand, a potential right-wing candidate in the 2022 presidential election, though he left the Les Républicains party in 2017, offered his “support” and “friendship” to Nicolas Sarkozy. The president of the Hauts-de-France region in northern France added: “All avenues of appeal must be used so that he can clear his honour.”
The head of the LR group of senators, Bruno Retailleau, another potential 2022 candidate, attacked what he called an “extremely tough sentence in a particularly weak case”. An LR MP from south-east France, Marine Brenier, talked about a “cabal” ranged against the former president, while her colleague Constance Le Grip said it was a conviction based on “no proof”.
However, it was Christian Jacob, a long-time friend of Nicolas Sarkozy, who was most outspoken about the role of the Parquet National Financier in the case. “The spotlight must be shone on the methods and independence of the PNF,” he declared, even though it was the criminal court in Paris which had convicted the ex-head of state.
LR senator Valérie Boyer also targeted the PNF “without whom Emmanuel Macron would not be president of the Republic”. This was an allusion to the PNF investigation opened in January 2017 into the LR presidential candidate François Fillon over a “fake jobs” scandal. Macron went on to win the election that year and Fillon was later convicted.
However, the claims of plots did little to hide the embarrassment of many on the Right who are now confronted with their own past pronouncements on law and order. If Nicolas Sarkozy does not go to jail it may well be because he is allowed to live at home under electronic surveillance – for which convicted criminals are eligible if the prison term they are given is a year or less in length. Yet the Right has constantly criticised the laxness of the French justice system on this and other points. And in 2015 Sarkozy himself proposed that only sentences of six months or below should be eligible for such treatment. In 2012 he had also argued: “The non-carrying out of sentences amounts to impunity.”
In any case, the conviction of Nicolas Sarkozy – even though he will appeal – renders an improbable political comeback in the 2022 presidential election even more improbable, even though some on the Right still hanker for his return. Valérie Boyer told BFMTV after the verdict: “It's going to be very difficult for Nicolas Sarkozy to take part in the presidential campaign as some might have hoped.”
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
English version by Michael Streeter