Sarkozy sentenced to 5 years in Libyan campaign-funding case

Then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy prior to his address to the United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters, Sept. 21, 2011. Sarkozy, former president of France, was found guilty on Thursday, Sept. 25, 2025, of plotting to finance his 2007 election bid with help from the government of Col. Muammar Gaddafi. (Damon Winter/The New York Times)

By AURELIEN BREEDEN

A court in Paris on Thursday found Nicolas Sarkozy, former president of France, guilty of a criminal conspiracy to seek funding for his 2007 campaign from the government of onetime Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi.

The court sentenced Sarkozy, a conservative politician who led France from 2007-12, to five years in prison and ruled that the incarceration would be enforced in the coming weeks regardless of an appeal — a harsh sentence that is unprecedented in modern French history for a former president.

“If they absolutely want me to sleep in prison, I will sleep in prison, but with my head high,” Sarkozy, looking grim and flanked by his lawyers and his wife, told reporters at the courthouse.

Sarkozy, who repeatedly denied any wrongdoing during the three-month trial this year, called the ruling a “scandal” and said he would challenge it.

“Those who hate me so much think that they are humiliating me,” he said. But, he added, “those they have humiliated are France and its image.”

The ruling, which elicited gasps from some in the courtroom, was perhaps the most severe and most damaging blow to Sarkozy’s legacy.

It was not his first conviction, nor even his first prison sentence — since leaving office. He has already been found guilty of corruption, influence peddling and campaign spending violations in separate cases. He has also been stripped of France’s highest distinction, the Legion of Honor.

Until now, though, through appeals and other means, he had remained free, and while he no longer holds public office, he is a well-regarded figure on the right who retains some political influence.

But on Thursday, for the first time, it suddenly became likely that Sarkozy, 70, would spend some time in prison, if not the full five years — a humiliating outcome for a man who rose to power in part on the image of a tough-talking, crime-battling politician.

Since 1945, only one other former French head of state had been found guilty by a court of law: Jacques Chirac, who was convicted in 2011 of misusing public funds when he was mayor of Paris.

But no former president has ever spent time behind bars.

Prosecutors had accused Sarkozy of being a central figure in a “Faustian corruption pact” with Libyan officials to funnel money to his 2007 campaign through bank and cash transfers, offshore accounts, and sham transactions.

In return, prosecutors said, Libya wanted economic deals, diplomatic recognition and possibly assistance from France in rescinding an arrest warrant against Abdullah Senoussi, Gadhafi’s brother-in-law who was wanted for the bombing of a French airliner in 1989 that killed 171 people.

Seven other defendants were found guilty, including Claude Guéant and Brice Hortefeux, former top aides to Sarkozy when he was interior minister from 2005-07 and who met with Senoussi in Libya.

At that time, the court noted, the Gadhafi government was trying to shed its pariah status and Sarkozy was mounting a presidential bid but did not yet have the assurances that he would have his party’s financial backing.

The court said Sarkozy and his aides had conspired to solicit funds — which is enough under French law to secure a conspiracy conviction — but said it had found insufficient evidence that such funds had actually landed in the campaign’s coffers.

Nathalie Gavarino, the presiding judge, said as she read out the court’s 400-page ruling that Sarkozy had allowed top aides who worked under his authority and “acted in his name” to “obtain or try to obtain” funding from Libya.

Gavarino said there was evidence that Libyan funds had transited to France in 2006 but that the path they took was “opaque” and that the court had seen no firm proof they had been used in Sarkozy’s campaign. The court also said that there was no evidence of a deal having been struck directly between Sarkozy and Gadhafi, who was killed during an uprising in 2011.

To that end, Sarkozy was cleared on charges of illegal campaign financing; concealing the misappropriation of public funds; and passive corruption, which refers to receiving money or favors.

But Gavarino said there was nevertheless enough evidence that Sarkozy and several of his aides had conspired to engage in “corruption at the highest possible level” — an “extremely serious” act that she said was likely to “undermine citizens’ confidence in those who represent them.”

“These facts make it necessary to impose a prison sentence,” she said, though the court imposed slightly less than the seven years that prosecutors had sought.

The verdict capped a sprawling case that stretched over a decade with twists and turns.

Sarkozy had strenuously denied any corruption pact, arguing that the accusations were driven mostly by allies of Gadhafi seeking revenge. Under Sarkozy’s leadership, France played a prominent role in the NATO-led campaign of airstrikes that ultimately led to the toppling of Gadhafi and his death at the hands of Libyan rebels.

Sarkozy’s legal team also noted that the investigation, which started in 2013, had found no conclusive evidence that Libya had sent millions, as some former Libyan officials had claimed.