The Court of Cassation will rule on Wednesday on Nicolas Sarkozy's appeal in the Bygmalion case, raising the specter of a second final criminal conviction over the former president, who will face the Libyan trial on appeal in the spring.

Overshadowed by the former head of state's brief incarceration in the Parisian prison of La Santé, this appeal to the Court of Cassation, which suspended the sentence pronounced against him, is the last recourse under French law for Nicolas Sarkozy in this case.

If the Court of Cassation rejects the appeal, as recommended by the Advocate General at the hearing on October 8, the Bygmalion case will become the second final criminal conviction on Nicolas Sarkozy's criminal record, after the wiretapping case.

On the other hand, if it recognizes the merits of the request, the highest French court, which judges only compliance with the law and not the substance of the cases, could order a new trial.

In the Bygmalion case, Nicolas Sarkozy was sentenced on February 14, 2024 by the Paris Court of Appeal to one year imprisonment, including six months of mandatory imprisonment, for the illegal financing of his lost 2012 presidential campaign.

In this case, the investigations revealed that in order to mask the explosion of his campaign spending - nearly 43 million euros for a maximum authorized amount of 22.5 million - a double billing system had been put in place, attributing a large part of the cost of the meetings to the UMP (which became LR), under the cover of fictitious agreements.

Unlike his co-defendants, the former head of state was not accused of this system of false invoices, but as a beneficiary, as a candidate, of illegal political financing.

In both the initial trial and the appeal, Nicolas Sarkozy "vigorously contested any criminal responsibility", denouncing "fables" and "lies".

His sentence on appeal, for which the court had ordered adjustments to the custodial portion (electronic bracelet, semi-liberty, etc.), was slightly less than the one-year custodial sentence handed down in the first instance in 2021.

Legal Perspectives

Three of the ten convicted on appeal in the Bygmalion trial have joined the appeal: the campaign manager, Guillaume Lambert, and former UMP executives Eric Cesari and Pierre Chassat.

In December 2024, the Court of Cassation had already made final the conviction of Nicolas Sarkozy to one year of imprisonment under electronic bracelet for corruption and influence peddling in the wiretapping case, also known as Bismuth.

The former right-wing champion, now 70 years old, wore it between February and May, before being granted parole before half his sentence, notably because of his age.

A new final conviction could further complicate the legal prospects of Nicolas Sarkozy, who is preparing to gamble with his future at the appeal trial in the Libyan case scheduled from March 16 to June 3.

On September 25, the Paris Criminal Court sentenced him to five years in prison for knowingly allowing his associates to approach Libya under dictator Muammar Gaddafi to solicit covert funding for his victorious 2007 presidential campaign.

To determine his sentence, the Paris court took into account the wiretapping case, criticizing Mr. Sarkozy in its judgment for having "relativized this conviction" by "minimizing the seriousness of the facts", but on the other hand dismissed the Bygmalion conviction because of its non-definitive nature.

Nicolas Sarkozy, who proclaims his innocence, was imprisoned for three weeks in the Santé prison in Paris, an unprecedented detention for a former president in the history of the French Republic and one that sparked heated debates.

The Paris Court of Appeal released him under judicial supervision on November 10th.