France’s judiciary has a new spring in its step these days. It marked the end of February by refusing to allow one of the country’s most dangerous media tycoons, Vincent Bolloré, to escape trial over corruption. And then, at the start of March, came the bombshell decision that the former president, Nicolas Sarkozy, should serve a year in jail for corruption.
That ruling on Sarkozy, who was president from 2007 to 2012, means that he joins François Fillon, his prime minister for those five years, and one of his ministers, Georges Tron, in facing the prospect of kicking his heels inside one of France’s overcrowded prisons. Fillon was last June sentenced for corruption, while in February 2021 Tron was found guilty of rape. The victim was an employee in the town hall at Draveil, a town in the Parisian suburbs, where Tron has been mayor since 1995.
All three are appealing the verdicts and sentences, though in Sarkozy’s case, this encounter with justice is only the first in a series
All three are appealing the verdicts and sentences, though in Sarkozy’s case, this encounter with justice is only the first in a series. He will be back in court on 17 March over his 2012 election expenses, and looming ever closer is an extraordinary affair, in which he is accused of financing his 2007 election campaign with the help of suitcases of cash thanks to Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Sarkozy has always denied all the accusations
