Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy to face trial over 2012 campaign financing

[tenorly]

Source: Daily Star

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy is to face trial over the allegedly fraudulent financing of his doomed 2012 bid for re-election, a legal source told AFP Tuesday.

The prosecution claims Sarkozy greatly exceeded a spending limit of €22.5 million ($24 million) by using false billing from a public relations firm called Bygmalion. Bygmalion allegedly charged €18.5 million ($20 million) to Sarkozy's right-wing party - which at the time was called the UMP, but has since been renamed the Republicans - instead of billing the president's campaign.

While the so-called Bygmalion case is the most pressing, Sarkozy, 61, has been fighting legal problems on several fronts since losing the 2012 election to President François Hollande.

After retiring from politics following that defeat, he returned to take the helm of the Republicans and sought the nomination to run for president in this year's two-stage election in April and May. In a surprise result, he was eliminated in November in the first round of a primary contest, trailing the eventual winner Francois Fillon and former Prime Minister Alain Juppe.

Only one other president - Jacques Chirac - has been tried in France's Fifth Republic, which was founded in 1958. He was given a two-year suspended jail term in 2011 over a fake job scandal.

Read more: https://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/World/2017/Feb-07/392629-ex-french-president-sarkozy-to-stand-trial-over-campaign-funding-source.ashx

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Oh là là.[/center]

[saidsimplesimon]

1. Thank you tenorly

Right wing corruption, c'est la vie? May justice prevail.

He has huge ears, droopy eyes, a big nose, thin lips and is a loser. He looks like Dr. Death in waiting. (I've read the height of insult is to tell someone how ugly they are both in appearance and philosophy.)

[tenorly]

3. Mais pas de quoi, saidsimplesimon!

I'm glad you took the trouble to read and share your thoughts; France is after all a key ally of ours as well as the world's 7th largest economy.

This isn't the first time the French right has been caught playing fast and loose with the country's strict campaign finance and public ethics laws (both of which I wish we could adopt ourselves).

The article mentioned Chirac's patronage scandals, and I wish they could have also made some mention of his notorious first campaign in 1988 - said to be awash in dark money.

Perhaps the most infamous such source (besides Nazi collaborator Lilianne Bettancourt) was probably Mobutu Sese Seko, the CIA-installed Zairian strongman whose wealth grew to be larger than Zaire's foreign debt while leaving his once-prosperous country among the poorest on earth.

To be fair, the allegations (said to involve millions) were never proven; but few in France have ever doubted it.

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An effusive Chirac greets Zaire's Mobutu weeks before the 1988 French election; Chirac lost.[/center]

[saidsimplesimon]

5. Thank you for the complement

There are numerous "allegations" that tRump is a criminal. "Justice is slow but sure."

[tenorly]

6. Slow like molasses in winter.

C'est le monde, non?

[saidsimplesimon]

7. Perhaps

I desire maple syrup come the spring.

[tenorly]

8. Ah bon!

Have you ever tried them with drizzled with orange liqeur? Formidable!

[Recursion]

2. And that's the nail in Fillon's coffin

Say hi to President LePen.

[tenorly]

4. Grands dieux non!

But you're right. That will most likely be the outcome of this string of scandals besieging France's Gaullists.

C'est la vie.

[burrowowl]

9. Good!!!