PARIS: France’s top court said Wednesday it will rule in November on embattled former president Nicolas Sarkozy’s final appeal over illegal campaign financing in 2012, in a case that could cement his second criminal conviction.
Sarkozy, who remains an influential figure on the right, has been embroiled in legal problems since losing the 2012 presidential election.
Last month, Sarkozy was sentenced to five years in prison over a scheme for late Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi to fund his 2007 presidential run. He will be the first French postwar leader to serve jail time.
Sarkozy has denied the charges and appealed that conviction, though under French law his sentence will be implemented even as his appeal plays out. He will learn on Monday when his prison term will begin.
Separately, the right-wing politician in 2021 received a one-year jail sentence in the so-called “Bygmalion affair” for the financing of his 2012 presidential campaign.
An appeals court in 2024 confirmed the conviction but lightened his sentence to six months with another six months suspended. He has appealed that ruling.
In November, Sarkozy will learn if his conviction is overturned or confirmed.
On Wednesday, the country’s highest appeals court examined his final appeal in the case.
If the Court of Cassation upholds Sarkozy’s conviction in its ruling expected on November 26 — as demanded by the prosecutor’s office at the hearing Wednesday — he will serve a six-month term with an electronic bracelet.
The former head of state was sentenced on charges that his right-wing party worked with a public relations firm, Bygmalion, to hide the true cost of his 2012 re-election bid.
Prosecutors said Sarkozy spent nearly 43 million euros on his 2012 campaign, almost double the permitted amount of 22.5 million euros.
Sarkozy has accused Bygmalion of having enriched itself behind his back and dismissed the allegations against him as “lies.”
His lawyers on Wednesday reiterated that stance.
“Nothing was materially established by the court of appeal regarding active involvement of President Sarkozy” in the overspending of campaign accounts, said one of Sarkozy’s lawyers, Emmanuel Piwnica.
Sarkozy’s latest hearing comes at a sensitive moment for France, with the country thrown into uncertainty by the shock resignation of Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu after less than a month in power.
French court sets November ruling in Sarkozy campaign finance appeal
https://arab.news/mer55
French court sets November ruling in Sarkozy campaign finance appeal
- Sarkozy has been embroiled in legal problems since losing the 2012 presidential election
- In November, Sarkozy will learn if his conviction is overturned or confirmed
Bolivia and Israel to restore ties severed over the war in Gaza
- Paz's government eased visa restrictions on American and Israeli travelers last month
- The Bolivian foreign ministry said its top diplomat would meet his Israeli counterpart in Washington later Tuesday to discuss the revival of bilateral ties
LA PAZ, Bolivia: Bolivia's new right-wing government said Tuesday that it would restore diplomatic relations with Israel, the latest sign of the dramatic geopolitical realignment underway in the South American country that was once among the most vocal critics of Israeli policies toward Palestinians.
The Bolivian foreign ministry said its top diplomat would meet his Israeli counterpart in Washington later Tuesday to discuss the revival of bilateral ties, which Bolivia's previous left-wing government severed two years ago over Israel's devastating campaign against Hamas in Gaza.
Bolivia said the effort came as part of a new foreign policy strategy under conservative President Rodrigo Paz aimed at “rebuilding Bolivia's international prestige, opening new economic opportunities and strengthening alliances that directly benefit the country and our citizens abroad."
Bolivian Foreign Minister Fernando Aramayo is in the midst of a whirlwind trip to Washington for meetings with American officials as his government works to warm long-chilly relations with the United States and unravel nearly two decades of hard-line, anti-Western policies under the Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, party that left Bolivia economically isolated and diplomatically allied with China, Russia and Venezuela.
Paz's government eased visa restrictions on American and Israeli travelers last month.
In announcing his expected meeting with Aramayo on Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar thanked Bolivia for scrapping Israeli visa controls and said he spoke to Paz after the center-right senator's Oct. 19 election victory to express “Israel’s desire to open a new chapter” in relations with Bolivia.
Paz entered office last month, ending the dominance of the MAS party founded by Evo Morales, the charismatic former coca-growing union leader who became Bolivia's first Indigenous president in 2006. Not long after taking power, Morales sent Israel's ambassador packing and cozied up to Iran over their shared enmity toward the U.S. and Israel.
When protests over Morales' disputed 2019 reelection prompted him to resign under pressure from the military, a right-wing interim government took over and restored full diplomatic relations with the U.S. and Israel as it sought to undo many of Morales’ popular policies.
But 2020 elections brought the MAS party back to power with the presidency of Luis Arce, who in 2023 once again cut ties with Israel in protest over its military actions in Gaza.
Other left-wing Latin American countries, like Chile and Colombia, soon made similar moves, recalling their ambassadors and joining South Africa’s genocide case against Israel before the United Nations’ highest judicial body.
