Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy may have been let off the hook Monday after prosecutors dropped charges against him that he received illegal funding from France’s richest woman, L’Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, for his 2007 presidential election campaign, reports FRANCE 24.
But while Sarkozy may feel relieved that he no longer features as a suspect in the case, the ongoing investigation into ten other suspects including his then-campaign manager Eric Woerth is likely to tarnish his reputation as he considers a political comeback in 2017.
Sarkozy’s headaches are by no means limited to the L’Oréal funding scandal. Despite the judicial immunity he enjoys for the years he served as French president, a number of ongoing cases could still do him considerable political damage.
The expensive ‘private’ opinion polls
Anti-corruption group Anticor has alleged that Sarkozy spent 9.4 million euros of public funds on opinion polls during his presidency, much of which found its way into the pockets of the former president’s friends and close advisers.
All Sarkozy’s actions during his tenure remain covered by his immunity as president, a status that was upheld by the Court of Cassation (France’s highest court, where top-level appeals are ruled on by senior judges) in 2011.
But Anticor charges that the polls, including several on the popularity of Sarkozy’s wife Carla Bruni, were of “private interest”, embezzled the public purse and were separate from his role as president, and therefore outside the bounds of his political immunity.
The case was re-opened early in 2013 and the home of Patrick Buisson, head of the Publifact polling agency and a close friend of Sarkozy’s, was searched by the authorities.
The ‘Karachi affair’
Sarkozy is a central character in the so-called “Karachi affair”, which goes back to the days when he was budget minister and campaign spokesman for former prime minister and presidential candidate Edouard Balladur.
Read more of this report from FRANCE 24.
Read Mediapart's coverage of the Bettencourt affair here.
Read Mediapart's coverage of the Karachi affair here.
Read Mediapart's coverage of the Libyan funding affair here.