Ex-French President Sarkozy Appeals Prison Term, Says Lawyer
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(Bloomberg) -- Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy appealed a one-year prison sentence over illegal campaign financing that was partly upheld, to the country’s highest court.
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The Paris Court of Appeal backed the 12-month sentence for Sarkozy over illegal campaign financing but suspended six months of it, according to a statement from the tribunal on Wednesday.
“Mr. Sarkozy is entirely innocent,” his lawyer Vincent Desry said in remarks carried on live TV, adding that he had just filed an appeal of the verdict to the Cour de Cassation. “He therefore maintains his fight, his stance in this case.”
A lower court in 2021 handed Sarkozy a one-year sentence for deliberately breaking campaign-finance rules in his failed 2012 re-election bid. The presiding judge at the time said he could have served his 12-month sentence by wearing an electronic bracelet but even the prospect of that was suspended pending ongoing appeals.
The case is known as the Bygmalion affair, after a communications company hired to organize Sarkozy’s rallies during the campaign.
In a separate case, Sarkozy was sentenced in 2021 to a one-year prison term for helping a magistrate land a prestigious job in return for information about a legal investigation. Although the conservative leader lost his appeal, the sentence hasn’t been carried out.
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