France\u2019s highest court, the Court of Cassation, on Wednesday upheld the conviction of former President Nicolas Sarkozy for illegally financing his 2012 election campaign, marking a second final conviction on his criminal record.
\nThe ruling confirms Sarkozy\u2019s prison sentence of one year, half of it suspended, for exceeding the legal spending limit in his failed campaign. Under French law, the sentence can be served at home under electronic monitoring or other conditions set by the judge.
\nThis decision follows Sarkozy\u2019s imprisonment last month in a separate case related to alleged Libyan funding of his previous campaign. After spending 20 days in prison, the 70-year-old former president became the first French head of state since World War II to serve a prison sentence, before being released earlier this month pending appeal.
\nThe Court of Cassation confirmed his final conviction for the 2012 campaign financing case, supporting last year\u2019s Court of Appeal ruling of six months\u2019 imprisonment under electronic monitoring.
\nProsecutors said Sarkozy\u2019s right-wing party collaborated with the public relations company \u201cBygmalion\u201d to conceal the true cost of his 2012 campaign. They stated that he spent nearly \u20ac43 million (about $50 million), almost double the legal limit of \u20ac22.5 million.
\nSarkozy denied all criminal responsibility, calling the allegations \u201clies.\u201d
\nFrench President Emmanuel Macron received Sarkozy before his imprisonment, and Justice Minister G\u00e9rald Darmanin, a former close associate of Sarkozy, faced criticism for meeting the ex-president inside Paris\u2019s La Sant\u00e9 prison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
France\u2019s highest court, the Court of Cassation, on Wednesday upheld the conviction of former President Nicolas Sarkozy for illegally financing his 2012 election campaign, marking a second final conviction on his criminal record. The ruling confirms Sarkozy\u2019s prison sentence of one year, half of it suspended, for exceeding the legal spending limit in his failed …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":57819,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57818"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57820,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57818\/revisions\/57820"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}