By Hélène DE LAUZUN

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Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has just been sentenced to five years in prison for “criminal conspiracy” in connection with his murky dealings with Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

The sentence, unprecedented for a man who has held the highest office in the land, has left the president’s entourage in a state of shock, and many voices have been raised to condemn the political bias of this irregular judicial decision.

The charges are “exceptionally serious” and “likely to undermine public confidence,” insisted the presiding judge on Thursday, September 25th. The Paris court sentenced Nicolas Sarkozy to five years’ imprisonment, to be served immediately, for “allowing his closest associates” to approach Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya to finance his successful 2007 presidential campaign.

Among his associates were his then-chief of staff, Claude Guéant; his friend and later interior minister, Brice Hortefeux; and Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine, who died earlier this week, just before the verdict. According to the ruling, the four men’s goal was to “obtain or attempt to obtain financial support in Libya with a view to securing campaign funding.”

In court, Claude Guéant was sentenced to six years in prison and Brice Hortefeux to two years’ imprisonment. They allegedly negotiated directly with Libyan leaders, reporting back to Sarkozy on their secret talks. Nicolas Sarkozy could “not have been unaware” of what was going on between these men and the purpose of their negotiations, the court concluded.

However, when examining the campaign accounts, the judges found no trace of Libyan money, which would suggest that the discussions did not achieve their goal. Sarkozy was therefore acquitted of the charges of corruption and illegal election campaign financing, even though cash support, which is by definition untraceable, “cannot be ruled out.”

On the Right, the announcement of the verdict was met with dismay. For sovereigntist and former member of the National Assembly Henri Guaino, once a personal adviser to Sarkozy, this is a form of judicial coup d’état. Without going so far as to call it a “political trial,” he sees the emergence of a “very dangerous underlying trend, whereby the judiciary can take precedence over the political power.”

The judges’ bias is obvious. There have been countless scandals involving other presidents—François Hollande and his falsified declaration of assets, or Emmanuel Macron and his missing investment banker’s fortune—without ever causing concern for the justice system. This is the first time that a president of the republic has been sentenced to prison, with provisional (immediate) enforcement of the sentence. The only element of leniency in the verdict was a deferred committal order, which meant that he did not leave the court in handcuffs to be taken directly to prison. The president’s image has been permanently tarnished. The judgement, steeped in the utopian good intentions so typical of the Left, refuses to consider that a head of state, whether we like it or not, is just like any other citizen when it comes to the law.

MEP François-Xavier Bellamy (Les Républicains) condemned the recourse to provisional enforcement as excessive: “If they believed so strongly in their sentence, what did the judges have to fear from waiting for an appeal decision? At a time when so many perpetrators of serious violence are released every day, the French people will not be fooled by the meaning of this decision,” he said on X. Drawing a parallel with the conviction handed down a few months ago to Marine Le Pen, the Rassemblement National was also outraged by Sarkozy’s conviction and, above all, by the request for provisional enforcement—the same procedure applied to Le Pen, which effectively nullifies part of the appeal.

Once these legitimate concerns have been expressed, it is nevertheless necessary to take a step back and look at Sarkozy’s position and his personal responsibility for the situation he finds himself in today.

On the substance of the case—his interactions with Libya—legitimate questions about the ideological assumptions of the judges who convicted Sarkozy should not obscure his grave responsibility for the conflagration in Libya and the destabilisation of the surrounding regions, for which we are still paying a heavy price today.

Formally speaking, if today, in 2025, the French judiciary, corrupted by the Left, can hand down such decisions, is it not also because, at the time, the same Sarkozy who has now been convicted did not have the political will to bring the Left into line?

Sarkozy was elected in 2007, after twelve years of Jacques Chirac’s reign, by promising a ‘break with the past.’ In that presidential election, the fiery UMP candidate managed the feat of convincing a large section of the right-wing electorate of his energy and determination, diverting them from voting for the National Front. Alas. Once in power, the right-wing discourse turned into bland rhetoric advocating ‘openness,’ i.e., the massive entry of left-wing figures into the government. The much-heralded crackdown never came—neither on the Left broadly nor on its corrupting influence within the judiciary.

Sarkozy played with the right wing, using it as an electoral argument before betraying it—and, to a certain extent, killing it. The ultimate crime was his murky role in the downfall of his prime minister, François Fillon, the conservative right-wing candidate in the 2017 presidential election, who fell from grace over minor corruption cases—his wife’s employment as a parliamentary assistant; luxury suits received as gifts—orchestrated by his political opponents, in which Sarkozy did nothing to lend him a helping hand and may even have pulled the trigger.

The former president has maintained a semblance of a friendly relationship with Emmanuel Macron since the latter’s election as president of the republic in 2017. No doubt he thought that once in power, Macron would protect him. But he should have understood that there was nothing to be expected from a man without faith or law, who came from the Left and was prepared to make any compromise to keep power in his hands.

Today, Sarkozy is paying for his political cowardice. Given the damage done to France by so many of his concessions, that price might even be too low.

Original article:  europeanconservative.com