The former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has been stripped of his Legion of Honour, the country’s highest distinction, after his conviction for corruption was confirmed last year, according to an official decree published on Sunday, reports The Guardian.
The conservative one-term president has been beset by legal problems since leaving office in 2012. In December France’s highest court upheld his conviction for influence peddling and corruption, ordering him to wear an electronic ankle tag for 12 months.
Sarkozy, who remains an important figure in French politics, had been found guilty by a lower court in 2021 of trying to bribe a judge and peddling influence in exchange for confidential information about an investigation into his 2007 campaign finances.
Sarkozy, whose electronic tag was removed this month, has taken the case to the European court of human rights for appeal. His lawyer, Patrice Spinosi, said he had taken note of the award’s revocation but stressed that the appeal was still pending.
An eventual ECHR ruling against France would “imply reviewing the criminal conviction against [Sarkozy], as well as his exclusion from the order of the Legion of Honour”, Spinosi said on Sunday.
Emmanuel Macron argued against the decision, but the rules of France’s top state award stipulate that any recipient definitively sentenced to a term in prison equal to or greater than a year will be excluded from the order.
The French president, who is known to meet Sarkozy regularly, had argued that his predecessor had been elected to the country’s highest office and it was “very important that former presidents are respected”.
Read more of this report from The Guardian.