The French former president, who will have to wear an electronic tag at home for a year, plans to appeal the ruling at the European Court for Human Rights.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00France's highest court on Wednesday upheld an appeal court decision that found former
00:04President Nicolas Sarkozy guilty of corruption and influence peddling while in office.
00:10The 69-year-old former politician now faces a year in prison but is set to request that
00:14he is instead be detained at home with an electronic bracelet as it is the case for
00:19any sentence of two years or less.
00:22He was found guilty by both a Paris court in 2021 and an appeals court in 2023 for trying
00:28to bribe a judge and of peddling influence in exchange for confidential information about
00:33a probe into his 2007 campaign finances.
00:36He obviously hoped that the Court of Cassation would follow the solution of the European
00:41Court of Human Rights.
00:42That was not the case.
00:43He is therefore forced to take a new action, to look for a higher guarantee of the rights
00:49to which he claims.
00:52Sarkozy was president from 2007 to 2012 and retired from public life in 2017 but still
00:57plays an influential role in French conservative politics.
00:59It is the first time in the country's modern history that a former president has been convicted
01:04and sentenced to prison for actions taken during his term.