Former head of state of France will be arrested on Tuesday (21) for articulating the illegal financing of his 2007 campaign with resources from Libya
The French president, reported, this Monday (20), that he had received the former conservative president at the Élysée Palace on the eve of his predecessor being admitted to a prison by criminal association. Sarkozy will be arrested on Tuesday (21) for maneuvering to illegally finance his 2007 election campaign with Libyan money, becoming the first former French head of state to go behind bars since the end of the Second World War.
“I have always made very clear public statements about the independence of the judicial authority (…) But it was normal that, on a human level, I received one of my predecessors in this context,” said Macron after a summit meeting in . The meeting at the headquarters of the French Presidency, in Paris, took place last Friday, a government source told AFP, confirming information provided by the newspaper Le Figaro.
His sentence to five years in prison was surrounded by controversy because Sarkozy questioned the fact that the court had ordered his entry into prison without waiting for his long-awaited appeal. In recent weeks, his criticism of what he called “unbearable injustice” and the alleged politicization of judges against him earned him support from the far right and forced Macron to come out in defense of justice.
However, a message he posted on X after the conviction appears to question the principle of immediate application of the sentence: “The presumption of innocence, as well as the right to appeal, must always be preserved”, wrote the current head of state. “You know what? I’m going to see him in prison,” Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin told France Inter radio, who already visited his political mentor after his conviction and does not consider this to affect judicial independence.
Sarkozy could remain in La Santé prison for just a few weeks. His lawyers will be able to ask for his parole as soon as he enters prison because he is already 70 years old. President of Between 2007 and 2012, Sarkozy said he would enter prison “with his head held high” and with a biography of Jesus and a copy of “The Count of Montecristo”, the most famous unjustly convicted innocent in French literature, he told Le Figaro newspaper on Sunday.
*With information from AFP
