Nicolas Sarkozy is appearing in court once again, starting on Wednesday, November 8, as he appeals the initial verdict from the so-called "Bygmalion" scandal, named after the company that organized the candidate's rallies in the 2012 presidential election. The former French president was initially handed a one-year prison sentence for exceeding the ceiling on election expenses, in September 2021.
Sarkozy will be retried alongside nine other defendants, all of whom were convicted in the first trial, with charges including fraud or complicity to fraud, breach of trust, concealment, forgery, use or concealment of forgery and complicity in exceeding the election expenses ceiling. The nine defendants are former members of Sarkozy's UMP party and his campaign, employees of the Bygmalion company and of its subsidiary Event & Cie and members of the candidate's campaign team. They are accused of having taken part in setting up the system of false invoices designed to conceal the campaign's true expenses – €42.8 million, almost double the €22.5 million legal limit for a presidential campaign.
In the first trial, Sarkozy attempted to convince the judges that the case did not concern him, or if so, only remotely, by attending only one day of the hearing, the day he was scheduled to be questioned. He blamed the whole affair on the UMP, which was then headed by his nemesis, Jean-François Copé, who had close ties with Bygmalion's directors.
A 'solid gold' campaign
In court, he said: "Am I the one who gets the quotes? No. Do I sign the invoices? No. Do I have any political responsibility? Yes. I'm the one who launched the 'Sarkothon' [fundraising campaign] and raised €12 million to pay [to reimburse campaign debt]. And I paid €350,000 out of my own pocket. Do I have any criminal responsibility? No."
Three months later, the verdict delivered a scathing rebuttal. Not only was the former president found guilty, but the court also ruled that the offenses of which the other defendants were accused had been "committed, not during an election campaign, but for the benefit of the campaign of a sitting president of the Republic standing for re-election."
The prosecutor, Vanessa Perrée, pointed out that the campaign had been "made of solid gold," and listed the rallies that featured spectacular technological prowess – 44 events, including three giant ones, which between them required half the authorized budget. But, as she pointed out, "Nicolas Sarkozy knows all this inside out. He's been in politics for 40 years. He cannot fail to realize the scale of the resources deployed. By boosting his campaign, he has not respected the essential value of equality between candidates. Let him accept the consequences today alongside those who worked for him."
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