World News: Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy Sentenced

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Category: Haute This Issue

Published on Monday, 29 September 2025 12:07

Written by Olivier Longhi

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been sentenced to five years in prison for conspiracy related to efforts to illegally finance his 2007 presidential campaign with funds from the Libyan government, which is enforceable immediately.

Sarkozy, the first former president to face the possibility of prison time, has repeatedly said that he wants to defend himself in order to regain his lost honor. However, if no one is above the law, it is also necessary to take responsibility for one's actions in order to come out of it stronger.

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The threats made against the magistrate who pronounced the conviction of Nicolas Sarkozy say a lot about the state in which democracy finds itself in the country of Human Rights. Independent and detached from political quarrels, justice cannot, as everyone will understand, be rendered under present or future threats. The climate of tension and hysteria that has reigned around Nicolas Sarkozy since his entry into politics is not for nothing in the threats made.

Willingly provocative, divisive and radical in his words, the former President of the Republic has been able to crystallize around him a clique of individuals always quick to defend him despite the reality of the facts. Victimization, which he handles with formidable ease, is also part of the rhetorical paraphernalia of Nicolas Sarkozy, who takes on the role of a cursed artist, misunderstood in his time, with a certain taste.

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Hysterical and Criminal

But beyond this reality, which will end up being anecdotal, it is above all the moral state of the

France that can be worrisome. While Italy seems to be happily engulfed in Georgia Meloni's populism, France is hysterical about the conviction of a former president, a conviction that proves that no one is above the law. Has it therefore become criminal to assert right and justice?

It is up to each person to answer the question in the light of his or her convictions, but one thing is certain, if justice is to apply, it applies to everyone, without distinction, detached from any debate and elevating the latter far from any agitation. The goddess Themis, blindfolded, the scales in one hand, the sword in the other, is only ever the incarnation of this principle which has no use for the gesticulations of a former president caught with his hands in the jam jar.

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And generating debate around a sentence that is, after all, banal, has more to do with crass populism than with the need to rethink the nation's legal and judicial model. Through a well-honed and finely thought out argument, the former President of the Republic is working to erode the already altered confidence of citizens in the rule of law by sullying the function of judges and by crying conspiracy against his person, alone against all.

This is a classic maneuver of any culprit who refuses to assume his responsibilities, starting with the consequences of his actions. Because president or not, the greatness of an individual is first earned there, by assuming and remaining silent.

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Bio: Olivier Longhi has extensive experience in European history. A seasoned journalist with fifteen years of experience, he is currently a professor of history and geography in the Toulouse region of France. He has held a variety of publishing positions, including Head of Agency and Chief of Publishing. A journalist and recognized blogger, editor, and editorial project manager, he has trained and managed editorial teams, worked as a journalist for various local radio stations, was a press and publishing consultant, and was a communications consultant.