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Former French President Sarkozy has been on the bench since today. You must answer for suspected bribery and influence. However, shortly after it began, the process was interrupted.
By Stefanie Markert, ARD-Studio Paris
The thing is called “Les écoutes” in French: “Espionage affair”. In 2014, two years after being removed from office, Sarkozy is said to have attempted to obtain investigative secrets from a high-ranking lawyer at the French Supreme Court. That is to say, in a proceeding for possibly from l’Oréal’s very old heir Liliane Bettencourt surreptitiously campaign funds. In return, the prosecutor was promised a high post in the Principality of Monaco.
The charge is based on wiretapped phone calls between Sarkozy and his lawyer, who is also on trial. Whether the wiretapping was legal is a matter of dispute in France. Sarkozy denies the accusations. On the BFM-TV news channel he recently attacked the journalist who was interviewing him harshly: “Pay close attention to your vocabulary. Then things will be much better. I am not joking here. Do not talk about me as a scoundrel. Excuse me!” “
Process suspended until Thursday
However, the process was interrupted shortly after its start until Thursday: a medical report must be prepared for one of the defendants, lawyer Gilbert Azibert, the news channel BFMTV reported from the Palace of Justice in Paris. The 73-year-old man’s lawyer requested that the judicial process be postponed for health reasons in the context of the corona pandemic, BFMTV reported.
Illegal campaign finance?
This process is only the beginning: in March, Sarkozy had to answer for the expenses of his unsuccessful re-election campaign in 2012. The legal upper limit is said to have been exceeded by some 20 million euros.
And then another matter of state: Sarkozy is said to have financed his election campaign, which led him to the presidency, with money from Libya five years earlier. Libyan dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi has given up millions, said Lebanese-French businessman Ziad Takieddine. In 2007, Gaddafi organized a visit to Paris.
Conflicting statements from an entrepreneur
Sarkozy defends himself: “When Monsieur Takkiedine accused me, a judicial process was opened. Millions of euros, dozens of policemen, various judges have been mobilized day and night for eight years.”
You have more in hand, say the researchers. A few days ago, however, the French television channels went crazy, because suddenly the businessman stated the opposite: “A judge wanted to regulate this in his own way. He wanted me to say things that contradict what I have always said: there was 2007 not there is funding from the Libyan side of Monsieur Sarkozy’s presidential campaign, “Takieddine said. Sarkozy, now a 65-year-old full-blooded politician, counters this change. “I am speechless. Is France a constitutional state, a democracy?”
Sarkozy’s influence in the conservative camp
The former president was just seen at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris in the official commemoration of the end of the First World War, chatting casually with the incumbent Emmanuel Macron. Its head of government is a confidant Sarkozy, who remains a beacon of hope for conservatives.
When Sarkozy appears, he wins a lot of applause, and his memoirs, released in the summer, are a best-seller. Will he be the driving force behind the Conservative camp for the 2022 presidential election? Sarkozy himself said on television in mid-November that he had turned the page.
