The French Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a six-month prison sentence, which could be served under house arrest, for former President Nicolas Sarkozy, on charges of illegal financing of his 2012 election campaign.
This is the second conviction against the Elysee tenant between 2007 and 2012, who had already served a sentence in a corruption and influence-peddling case for which the Supreme Court finally convicted him last December.
Investigations revealed that to hide his campaign’s high expenses – nearly 43 million euros compared to the maximum allowed of 22.5 million euros – a double billing system was created that attributed a large part of the cost of the rallies to the UMP (Union for a Popular Movement, renamed to the Republicans in 2015), under the guise of fake agreements, and a large part of the cost of the rallies, Le Monde reported.