French prosecutor’s office seeks 1-year suspended prison sentence for ex-president

PARIS

The French prosecutor's office on Thursday requested a one-year suspended prison sentence for former President Nicolas Sarkozy.

According to public broadcaster France 24, the wiretapping case, also known as the “Bygmalion affair,” is being heard at the Paris Court of Appeal.

As part of the case, Sarkozy is accused of illegally financing the presidential election campaign he lost in 2012.

He is accused of receiving false invoices from the Bygmalion company, which ran the campaign, to disguise his election spending as a party activity.

Sarkozy was wiretapped in 2013 after suspicions that he illegally funded his election campaign from Libyan sources.

Investigators found that the former president was using two other phone lines registered under the name of Paul Bismuth, an old school friend. Sarkozy only communicated with his lawyer Thierry Herzog via the two numbers.

Sarkozy was sentenced to one year in prison in 2021 in the wiretapping case, in which he was accused of corruption.

The former president had appealed the court decision.