PARIS — Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was sentenced Thursday to five years in prison after a Paris criminal court found him guilty of criminal conspiracy in a long-running case over alleged Libyan financing of his 2007 presidential campaign. He was acquitted of the accompanying charges of passive corruption and illegal campaign financing. The court also imposed a €100,000 fine.
Presiding judge Nathalie Gavarino said Sarkozy allowed close aides to engage Libyan officials to obtain financial support for his election bid, but the panel concluded there was insufficient evidence that he directly benefited from illegal campaign funds. The ruling triggered an audible gasp in the courtroom.
Sarkozy, 70, who led France from 2007 to 2012, called the verdict “extremely serious for the rule of law” and said he would appeal, insisting the case was politically motivated. “If they absolutely want me to sleep in jail, I will sleep in jail, but with my head held high,” he told reporters outside the courthouse. Under the ruling, he could be incarcerated even if he appeals, a first for a former French head of state and a dramatic setback for a figure who has consistently proclaimed his innocence across multiple investigations.
The case stems from accusations first aired in 2011–2013, including by Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, that money from Col. Muammar Gaddafi’s regime flowed to Sarkozy’s 2007 campaign. In 2014, Lebanese-French middleman Ziad Takieddine claimed he had written proof that as much as €50 million from Tripoli financed Sarkozy’s bid and continued after he took office—assertions Sarkozy has always rejected.
Several Sarkozy allies were also in the dock. Former interior ministers Claude Guéant and Brice Hortefeux were convicted on corruption and other charges, Hortefeux for criminal conspiracy. Separately, Sarkozy’s wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, was charged in 2024 with hiding evidence and associating with wrongdoers to commit fraud in connection with the Libyan probe—allegations she denies.
Thursday’s judgment adds to Sarkozy’s mounting legal troubles. He is appealing a February 2024 conviction for overspending in his failed 2012 re-election campaign and for hiring a PR firm to conceal it, for which he received a one-year sentence (six months suspended). In 2021, he was convicted of attempting to bribe a judge in 2014 and became the first former French president handed a custodial sentence; an appeals court later allowed him to serve that term under electronic monitoring at home.
While Sarkozy’s legal team prepares its appeal in the Libyan case, the ruling marks an extraordinary moment in French politics—placing a former president on the brink of actual imprisonment and intensifying debates over corruption, campaign finance, and judicial independence at the highest levels of the state.
