PARIS: Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was found guilty on Wednesday by a Paris appeals court of illegal campaign financing over his failed 2012 re-election bid, confirming a previous ruling by a lower court.
He was sentenced to one-year year prison sentence, half of which suspended, that can be served through alternative means like wearing an electronic bracelet without going to jail.
Sarkozy had been handed a one-year prison sentence in 2021 when first found guilty, though that was suspended while he launched his appeal.
Sarkozy, who was president from 2007 to 2012, remained an influential figure among conservatives and is on friendly terms with President Emmanuel Macron — despite a string of trials and investigations linked to various legal issues surrounding his campaign finances.
He has always denied accusations that his party Les Republicains, then known as the UMP, worked with a public relations firm named Bygmalion to hide the true cost of his campaign — marked by lavish show events previously unseen in French politics.
During a hearing, Sarkozy put the blame on some members of his campaign team: “I didn’t choose any supplier, I didn’t sign any quotation, any invoice,” he told the court.
France sets strict limits on campaign spending. Prosecutors allege that the firm invoiced UMP rather than the campaign. They say Sarkozy spent 42.8 million euros on his 2012 campaign, almost double the permitted amount.
France’s Sarkozy found guilty of illegal campaign financing, appeals court confirms
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France’s Sarkozy found guilty of illegal campaign financing, appeals court confirms
- He was sentenced to one-year year prison sentence, half of which suspended, that can be served through alternative means
- During a hearing, Sarkozy put the blame on some members of his campaign team
Dreams on hold for Rohingya children in Bangladesh camps
- Around half a million children live in the camps housing the waves of Rohingya who have escaped Myanmar in recent years, many during a brutal military crackdown in 2017
COX’S BAZAR: Books tucked under their arms, children file into a small classroom in Bangladesh’s vast refugee camps, home to more than a million Rohingya who have fled neighboring Myanmar.
“They still dream of becoming pilots, doctors or engineers,” said their teacher Mohammad Amin, standing in front of a crowded schoolroom in Cox’s Bazar.
“But we don’t know if they will ever reach their goals with the limited opportunities available.”
Around half a million children live in the camps housing the waves of Rohingya who have escaped Myanmar in recent years, many during a brutal military crackdown in 2017. The campaign, which saw Rohingya villages burned and civilians killed, is the subject of a genocide case at the UN top court in The Hague, where hearings opened on Monday.
In the aftermath of the 2017 exodus, international aid groups and UNICEF, the UN’s children’s agency, rushed to open schools.
By 2024, UNICEF and its partners were running more than 6,500 learning centers across the Cox’s Bazar camps, educating up to 300,000 children. But the system is severely overstretched. “The current system provides three hours of instruction per day for children,” said Faria Selim of UNICEF. “The daily contact hours are not enough.”
Khin Maung, a member of the United Council of Rohingya which represents refugees in the camps, said the education on offer leaves students ill-prepared to re-enter Myanmar’s school system should they return. “There is a severe shortage of teachers in the camps,” he said.
Hashim Ullah, 30, is the only teacher at a primary school run by an aid agency.
“I teach Burmese language, mathematics, science and life skills to 65 students in two shifts. I am not an expert in all subjects,” he said.
Such shortcomings are not lost on parents. For them, education represents their children’s only escape from the risks that stalk camp life — malnutrition, early marriage, child labor, trafficking, abduction or forced recruitment into one of the armed groups in Myanmar’s civil war.
As a result, some families supplement the aid-run schools with extra classes organized by members of their own community.
“At dawn and dusk, older children go to community-based high schools,” said father-of-seven Jamil Ahmad.
“They have good teachers,” and the only requirement is a modest tuition fee, which Jamil said he covered by selling part of his monthly food rations.
“Bangladesh is a small country with limited opportunities,” he said. “I’m glad that they have been hosting us.”
Fifteen-year-old Hamima Begum has followed the same path, attending both an aid-run school and a community high school.
“I want to go to college,” she said. “I am aiming to study human rights, justice, and peace — and someday I will help my community in their repatriation.”
But such schools are far too few to meet demand, especially for older children.
A 2024 assessment by a consortium of aid agencies and UN bodies concluded that school attendance falls from about 70 percent among children aged five to 14, to less than 20 percent among those aged 15 to 18.
Girls are particularly badly affected, according to the study.
