{"id":829691,"date":"2026-03-16T14:03:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T14:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/829691\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T14:03:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T14:03:14","slug":"frances-sarkozy-appeals-campaign-financing-conviction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/829691\/","title":{"rendered":"France’s Sarkozy appeals campaign financing conviction"},"content":{"rendered":"

PARIS (AP) \u2014 Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy<\/a> returned to court on Monday for an appeal hearing in Paris over his conviction linked to the alleged illegal campaign financing of his 2007 presidential campaign by Libya, a case<\/a> that led him to spend 20 days in prison<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n

Sarkozy, 71, is challenging a September ruling by a Paris court that found him guilty of \u201ccriminal conspiracy.\u201d He was sentenced to five years in prison for his alleged part in a scheme to obtain funds from the government of late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in exchange for political and diplomatic favors.<\/p>\n

The verdict marked the first time that a former president of modern France had been sentenced to actual prison time. Sarkozy \u2014 who led France from 2007 to 2012 \u2014 began serving his sentence before a Paris appeals court ordered his release<\/a> under judicial supervision pending the new trial.<\/p>\n

The appeal hearing, which is scheduled to last until June 3, will reexamine all of the evidence and testimony related to Sarkozy and nine co-defendants \u2014 including three former ministers.<\/p>\n

In September, the judges found that Sarkozy and his associates had formed a criminal association between 2005 and 2007 to secure money from Libya to support his successful presidential bid.<\/p>\n

Sarkozy has denied wrongdoing and suggested the accusations were politically motivated.<\/p>\n

He has faced multiple legal cases since leaving office but remains an influential figure in conservative politics. <\/p>\n

In November, the Court of Cassation \u2014 France\u2019s top court \u2014 upheld his conviction<\/a> for illegal campaign financing of his 2012 reelection bid, requiring him to spend six months under house arrest wearing an electronic ankle tag, a sentence that has yet to be implemented.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARIS (AP) \u2014 Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy returned to court on Monday for an appeal hearing in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":829692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5309],"tags":[52305,30,7144,33,2000,299,36,4179,7136,6656,90666,33182,1411,263],"class_list":["post-829691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-france","tag-campaign-finance","tag-courts","tag-criminal-punishment","tag-elections","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-france","tag-general-news","tag-legal-proceedings","tag-libya","tag-libya-government","tag-nicolas-sarkozy","tag-paris","tag-world-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116239231118874411","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=829691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/829692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=829691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=829691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=829691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}