Overview

• Nicolas Sarkozy’s sentence carries exécution provisoire, meaning his appeal will not delay the start of his prison term.
• He was acquitted of corruption, illicit campaign financing and receiving embezzled Libyan public funds, but the court found coordinated preparatory acts sufficient to prove association de malfaiteurs.
• Judges cited meetings by Claude Guéant and Brice Hortefeux with Libyan official Abdallah Senoussi and records such as Choukri Ghanem’s notebooks, while noting no proof that Libyan cash definitively reached the 2007 campaign.
• The judgment also imposes a €100,000 fine and five years of ineligibility, making Sarkozy the first ex-president of the Fifth Republic to face incarceration.
• Co-defendants received mixed outcomes, with Guéant sentenced to six years and Hortefeux to two years, while former campaign treasurer Éric Woerth was acquitted, and the use of exécution provisoire drew public criticism from Marine Le Pen.