Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy reacts after the verdict in his trial for illegal campaign financing from Libya for his successful 2007 presidential bid, at the Tribunal de Paris courthouse in Paris, on September 25, 2025. (Photo by Alain Jocard / AFP)
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was found guilty of "criminal conspiracy” Friday and handed a five-year prison term by a Paris court in connection to an attempt to raise campaign funds from Libya’s late dictator Moammar Gaddafi.
Sarkozy, 70, conspired with close aides to seek funds from the Libyan government for his 2007 presidential campaign, the court found. He has maintained his innocence and after the ruling said he had been targeted for political reasons.
The prison term, however much of it he winds up serving, is an unprecedented punishment for a modern French president. The date for his sentence to begin has yet to be decided, the court said. An appeals process would not stop Sarkozy from going to prison, the AP reported.
"If they absolutely want me to sleep in prison, I will sleep in prison,” Sarkozy told reporters, surrounded by his lawyers and wife, the singer and model Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. "But with my head held high.”
"Those who hate me this much think it’s humiliating for me. What they humiliated today is France,” he said.
Sarkozy, a longtime fixture on France’s center-right, was president from 2007 to 2012. The Libya connection stems from his stint as interior minister, 2005-2007, during which the court found he carried out diplomatic favors while seeking funds. He was cleared of other charges in the same case, including corruption, illegal campaign financing and concealing the embezzlement of public funds.
Sarkozy was stripped of his Legion of Honor medal - the highest French award - after he was convicted in a previous case for corruption and influence peddling. He was ordered to wear an electronic tag for a year, another first for a former French leader, but was later granted a conditional release due to his age.
In yet another case, Sarkozy was convicted on illegal financing charges in connection to his 2012 reelection campaign, and sentenced to a year in prison but allowed to appeal before serving. A final hearing is expected in October.
At Thursday’s sentencing, chief judge Nathalie Gavarino, addressing Sarkozy, said, "the goal of the criminal conspiracy was to give you an advantage in the electoral campaign” and "to prepare an act of corruption at the highest possible level in the event that you were elected President of the Republic.”
Gavarino said there was no proof that Sarkozy struck a deal with Gaddafi or that money from Libya reached Sarkozy’s campaign accounts. But she said Sarkozy was guilty of allowing his aides to make contact with people in Libya to raise the money - enough to constitute conspiracy under French law.
Sarkozy, who has maintained his innocence since the three-month trial began in January, said the plan was simply "an idea” that did not come to fruition.
The accusations began in 2011, when a Libyan news agency and Gaddafi said the government had helped Sarkozy win the 2007 election. A French investigative outlet published an alleged Libyan intelligence memo citing a 50 million-euro agreement. This week, a French court said the document was likely a forgery.
