France's ex-president Sarkozy on trial over alleged Gaddafi pact

Melissa Chemam with RFI

6 January 2025 at 10:31 am·1-min read

Nicolas Sarkozy accueillant Mouammar French President Nicolas Sarkozy, greeting Libyan leader Col. Moammar Kadhafi at the Elysee Palace, in Paris, on 10 December 2007.

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy is again on trial from this Monday, as he has been charged with accepting illegal campaign financing in an alleged pact with the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

Nicolas Sarkozy was present in the Paris court as the trial got underway Monday. He plans to attend the initial phase of hearings, as a source close to him told French news agency AFP, asking not to be named.

The trial centers on whether the former French president received money from the then Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to finance the campaign that brought him to the Élysée in 2007, with him and eleven other defendants, including three former ministers - Claude Guéant, Brice Hortefeux, and Éric Woerth - standing trial.

Vincent Brengarth, lawyer for the Sherpa association, a civil party, told RFI that he hopes that despite the longevity and complexity of the case, the public's interest will match the stakes of this trial.

"This case might seem, in some respects, completely fictional if it were not supported by years of thorough investigation," he said.

The accusations

The first accusations against them came from Libya in 2011, just before the fall of Gaddafi. The Libyan leader had then been cornered by a popular uprising, supported by a Western intervention, particularly France and President Sarkozy himself.

If convicted, Sarkozy faces up to 10 years in prison under the charges of concealing embezzlement of public funds and illegal campaign financing.

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The accusations

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