On September 25, local time, the atmosphere at the Paris Criminal Court was solemn and solemn. As the mallet of presiding judge Gavarino's verdict fell, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was sentenced to five years in prison for being convicted of illegally accepting campaign funding provided by the late Libya leader Gaddafi during the 2007 presidential election.
This verdict not only ended a judicial marathon that lasted for more than ten years, but also left an unprecedented mark on the history of the Fifth Republic of France. The shock of this verdict lies not only in the severity of its sentence, but also in a rare judicial execution ruling: "With a provisional execution order." This means that even if Sarkozy appealed immediately, he would not be able to suspend the execution of the sentence-he would have to go to prison. This is the first time in modern French history.
After the verdict was announced, 70-year-old Sarkozy was surrounded by reporters and supporters outside the court. His face was grim and his tone was full of the usual fighting spirit and indignation: "If they insist on me sleeping in prison, I will sleep in prison. But I will hold my head high. I am innocent."
Sarkozy's "fall" did not happen overnight. How did this politician, once known as the "super president", step from the top of the power of the Elysee Palace to the high walls of the prison step by step?
On September 25, in Paris, France, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy (center) was interviewed by the media after the trial. Picture/Vision China
An unusually severe sentence.
To understand the far-reaching impact of this judgment, we must first clarify the relevant legal connotation. The court finally found Sarkozy guilty of "criminal conspiracy" (French association de malfaiteurs, literally translated as "forming a criminal gang"), sentenced him to five years' imprisonment and fined 100,000 euros. However, the court acquitted Sarkozy on three other more explosive charges brought by the prosecution, including passive corruption, illegal campaign financing and concealment of public funds.
Behind this seemingly contradictory judgment is a profound definition of political ethics by French judiciary. The court admitted that after a decade of investigation, the prosecution failed to provide "ironclad evidence" that the funds from Libya did finally flow into Sarkozy's 2007 campaign account. However, according to French law, the establishment of the crime of "criminal conspiracy" does not require the final realization of the criminal goal. The court held that a large amount of circumstantial evidence has constituted a complete chain of evidence, which is enough to prove the existence of a "corruption contract". The judgment notes that Sarkozy "allowed his cronies … to contact the Libyan authorities with a view to obtaining or trying to obtain financial support" during his tenure as interior minister from 2005 to 2007. In other words, what the court punishes is not the fait accompli of bribery, but the "conspiracy" itself of planning and preparing this subvert * process.
Judge Natalie Gavarinou, the chief judge of the court, explained in harsh terms why the rare “temporary enforcement order” was issued. She pointed out that Sarkozy’s actions were abnormally serious enough to undermine citizens’ confidence in public institutions. Behind the logic of the judgment was a clear signal from the judiciary system that the mere “intention” and “preparation act” of using public authority to exchange interests with a foreign regime had constituted a serious erosion of the foundations of the democratic system and touched the red line of political ethics.
This ruling has sparked great controversy in French politics. Senate Speaker Gerard Larche and far-right party leader Marina Le Pen questioned the “temporary enforcement order” as it deprived the defendants of their freedom before all appeals were exhausted and as a potential threat to the principles of justice.
Super President and Dictator.
Sarkozy's political career is itself a drama full of contradictions and controversy. He entered the inner circle of Paris politics from serving as Interior Minister in the Chirac government cabinet, and later as Finance Minister. In 2007, Sarkozy, as Chirac's successor, was elected president under the slogan of "rupture", promising to bring change to France.
Unlike several previous presidents, Sarkozy has a high-profile and grandiose style. He has had three marriages, and his third wife, Carla Bruni, is a famous Italian singer and international supermodel, which makes the president and his wife live in the spotlight almost all the time, nicknamed "Glittering President". After entering the Elysee Palace, Sarkozy created a ruling style called "super-presidential system": he was energetic and ubiquitous, personally intervening in almost everything from foreign affairs to internal affairs, and marginalizing the roles of prime minister and cabinet ministers. This vigorous and resolute style also makes all power and risk concentrated on one person.
It was under this personal-will-driven political style that a paradoxical relationship between Sarkozy and Gaddafi unfolded. The story began in 2005, when the then Minister of Internal Affairs Sarkozy and his friends began frequently to visit Libya, paving the way for the so-called “corruption treaty.” Prosecutors accused both sides that the deal was: Libya provided campaign funding, while Sarkozy helped the Gaddafi regime, then isolated by the international community for supporting terrorism (such as planning to carry out the lobby air crash in 1988) to return to the international stage.
The deal culminated in December 2007. Sarkozy, newly elected president, invited Gaddafi to pay a state visit to France. The latter staged a shocking political show in Paris: he set up the iconic Bedouin tent in the garden near the Elysee Palace, and the huge luxury convoy paralyzed Paris traffic. This move not only angered the French people, but also deeply hurt the families of the victims of the terrorist attacks in Libya. This visit has become the most criticized stain of Sarkozy's pragmatic diplomacy, and it has also laid the groundwork for future judicial prosecution.
However, the paradox of history is that only four years later, Gaddafi, a former guest, became Sarkozy's number one enemy. In 2011, the wave of "Arab Spring" swept across Libya, and Sarkozy became the most active "hawk" among western leaders who advocated military intervention. Under his push, France played a vanguard role in NATO-led air strikes, which eventually led to the collapse of Gaddafi's regime. In October of the same year, Gaddafi was killed by opposition forces.
From secret contacts and high funding to the encounters, Sarkozy’s policy in Libya has taken a 180-degree turn. Over the years, he has insisted that all allegations of illegal funding are retaliation and conspiracy for the “Rest of Gaddafi” to overthrow his dictatorship. However, behind this rewarding excuse, the whole of the event has not been based on French national interests from the beginning to the end, but is encased by the “super president”’s personal political ambitions. Both the initial exchange of interests and the final military intervention serve its changing political agenda. The relationship, based on speculation, eventually collapsed, dragging Sarkozy himself into the abyss.
A decade of prosecution.
The judicial prosecution of Sarkozy is like a protracted "ghost struggle". The earliest allegations appeared in March 2011, just before NATO's intervention, when Gaddafi's son Saif first publicly claimed that Libya funded Sarkozy's campaign. A year later, in April 2012, at the critical moment of Sarkozy's campaign for *, Mediapart, a French investigative news website, published a memo allegedly from Libyan intelligence services, which mentioned a funding agreement of up to 50 million euros. Sarkozy immediately dismissed it as "forgery", and many years later, the court did think that the document was "most likely forged". However, once Pandora's box is opened, it can never be closed again. Sarkozy, who represented the right-wing "People's Movement Alliance", finally lost to Hollande of the left-wing Socialist Party, and failed to run for *.
The key turning point of the case appeared in 2016, when the French Lebanese businessman Ziad Takhidin in a video interview released by Mediapart detailed how he himself would carry a suitcase of €5 million in cash, transported from Tripoli to the office of the then Interior Minister Sarkozy. Tacitin’s testimony, once the most powerful weapon of the prosecutor’s office. However, the key witness’s speech was repeatedly inconsistent. In 2020, he suddenly overthrew his entire testimony and soon again rumored, claiming that the previous confession was under pressure. This series of reversals, not only wiped out his credibility, but also triggered an independent “interference witness” investigation, and Sarkozy and his wife Carrie Bruni were therefore also subjected to preliminary charges
In the absence of direct “criminal evidence”, the prosecutors could only take the tactic of drawing out a “package of evidence” from a large amount of indirect evidence, including: a notebook of former Libyan oil minister Ganim, who was found drowned on the Danube in 2012, recording the details of the payment to Sarkozy; the testimony of several former Libyan senior officials; Sarkozy’s close friends, such as former interior ministers Claude Gauguin and Brice Ortef, who traveled to Libya with records and suspicious exchanges of funds. In this verdict, Gauguin and Ortef were also convicted of crimes such as “criminal conspiracy” and were sentenced to two to six years in prison.
The Libyan funding case is only the most serious of many legal dilemmas faced by Sarkozy after leaving office. His retirement career has virtually been spent in the spotlight of courts and media since his failed * campaign in 2012. Together, these cases depict a political image of contempt for rules and abuse of influence. Sarkozy gradually changed from a "super president" during his tenure to a "black gold president" that everyone shouted and beat.
The collapse of Sarkozy's political image has profoundly affected the French political situation. After Sarkozy stepped down, the "People's Movement League", which was once the standard-bearer of France's centre-right forces, and the renamed French Republican Party, failed to win the French election. Instead, they were defeated twice in 2017 and 2022 by the "Kadima Party of the Republic" led by Macron. Against the background of the rise of the far-right "People's Alliance", in the first round of voting in the 2022 general election, Republican candidate Pequeres received only 4.78% of the vote and was pushed to fifth place.
Sarkozy was first convicted in a "wiretapping case" that accused Sarkozy of trying in 2014 to exchange inside information on another case by promising a generous position for senior judge Gilbert Azibel in Monaco. In the end, he was convicted of corruption and trading in influence and sentenced to three years in prison, one of which was a real sentence. In 2024, Sarkozy served three months in home confinement wearing electronic leg shackles. In December of the same year, the French Supreme Court rejected his final appeal, making the verdict final.
Followed by the “Big Marion case,” which is central to Sarkozy’s failure in his 2012 re-election campaign to issue fake invoices through a public relations firm called “Big Marion” to cover up the fact that his campaign spending was twice as high as the previous year. In this case, Sarkozy was once again convicted of being sentenced to one year in prison for illegal campaign funding, including six months for suspension. Currently, the case has been appealed to the French Supreme Court and is expected to make a final ruling by the end of 2025.
Whether it's trying to buy judges or making false accounts to cover up campaign overspending, these cases reflect a systemic disregard for the rules. Whenever the incident happens, Sarkozy's defense strategy is the same: portraying himself as a victim of joint "persecution" between the judicial system and political opponents. This patterned behavior eventually cost him a heavy price, including being deprived of France's highest honor-the Legion of Honor. This is the ultimate denial of his political career.
The black gold of European politics
A series of cases of Sarkozy are not isolated, reflecting a long-standing obscurity in European politics, namely illegal political donations. Looking back at history, similar scandals occurred in different forms in different countries and profoundly changed the political landscape of countries.
In Germany, former Prime Minister Kohl was deeply plunged into the “Government Union donation scandal” in the late 1990s. The politician known as the “United Prime Minister” acknowledged that he had received millions of undeclared cash donations through the secret “Little Treasury”. These funds were used to bypass the party’s financial regulations, directly allocated by Kohl himself to the Fraternity and local party departments, in order to consolidate his status as a “father” within the party. After the scandal was exposed, Kohl refused to disclose the names of the donors on the basis of the “honor promise”, a stubborn attitude that completely destroyed his political legacy and eventually paved the way for the rise of his disciple Merkel.
In Italy, the "hands-cleaning movement" in the early 1990s uncovered a larger and systematic corruption network, the so-called "kickback city case". The survey found that it has become an institutionalized unspoken rule for enterprises to pay kickbacks to major political party bosses in exchange for public works contracts. The consequences of this judicial storm were devastating: half of the members of parliament were prosecuted, and the traditional ruling parties, including Christian Democrats and Socialists, collapsed, which directly led to the end of the First Italian Republic and gave birth to the appearance of populist figures such as silvio berlusconi.
By comparing the three scandals, each revealed the pathogens of different political systems. The core of the Cole case was the opacity of internal party funding and power operations; the “clean-hand movement” exposed the systematic conspiracy between the state and the business elite; and the Sarkozy case introduced a new and more dangerous dimension – transnational corruption. What he sought was donations not from his own companies, but from a controversial foreign regime leader.
The Sarkozy case also directly ties domestic electoral politics to France's policy towards a specific foreign country for the first time. It has transcended the traditional category of corruption and touched the core of national sovereignty and security. As the global political landscape becomes increasingly diverse and transactional, the temptation for politicians in developed democracies to seek funds from wealthy authoritarian states could become a serious new threat.
Sarkozy's current outcome is a footnote to his personal political tragedy and a mirror of French and even European politics. His presidency and even his entire political career will now be permanently shrouded by the shadow cast by this series of scandals.
At the same time, Sarkozy's "fall" is not only a story of one person, but also a symptom of an era. It exposes the enormous thirst for funds of the modern western electoral system, and the institutional loopholes and moral hazard that result. In a time when public trust in the elite has long been in jeopardy, this case has undoubtedly deepened the disillusionment of the people. Sarkozy left a deep and lasting scar not only on France, but almost on the whole of Europe.
(Author of the Department of Political Review, PhD candidate for the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge, UK)
Published in 2025.10.6 total 1207th edition of China News Weekly
Sarkozy in jail: “The Fall of the Super President”
Author: Qu Fanfu
Edited by:徐方清