The former chief of staff of the ex-French president Nicolas Sarkozy was handed a new jail sentence Friday, adding to a long list of convictions stemming from the rightwinger’s 2007-2012 term in office, reports The Guardian.
Claude Guéant, considered one of Sarkozy’s closest confidants, went on trial in October along with four other aides and allies over accusations they misused public money while ordering public opinion polls worth a combined 7.5 million euros (£6.3m).
Guéant, who is already in jail over a separate offence, was handed a one-year prison sentence by a court in Paris on Friday, with a requirement to serve a minimum of eight months.
The writer and one-time Sarkozy adviser Patrick Buisson was handed a two-year suspended sentence and a 150,000-euro fine, while the former cabinet director Emmanuelle Mignon was given a six-month suspended sentence.
The former pollster and consultant Pierre Giacometti was also convicted and handed a six-month suspended sentence and a fine of 70,000 euros.
They were accused of ordering polls for Sarkozy in secret and without competition, breaking French laws on public financing that require transparency and competitive bidding.
The former Sarkozy aide Julien Vaulpré was the only one of the five accused to be cleared.