Sarkozy and Gaddafi: a blueprint for buying influence?

Joanna YORK

9 January 2025 at 12:41 pm·1-min read

Former Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi shakes hands with former French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Tripoli on July 25, 2007.

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy went on trial this week accused of accepting millions of euros in illegal funding from former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Did Gaddafi set a precedent for other autocrats who want to buy influence in the West?

Sarkozy, on trial with three of his former ministers, is accused of accepting €50 million in illegal campaign funds, which prosecutors suspect Gaddafi paid in exchange for diplomatic, legal and business favours.

The autocratic leader, whose regime was known for its human rights abuses, forged a relationship with Sarkozy that saw him invited to Paris with honours after Sarkozy was elected president in 2007.

Gaddafi’s success in buying influence set a precedent, Anas Al-Gomati, Director of Libyan think tank the Sadeq Institute told FRANCE 24. “The blueprint continues today. We see autocracies across the Arab world continue to use the same Gaddafi playbook.”

Buying influence

Gaddafi is not the first foreign leader suspected of buying influence in French politics. But during his 43-year rule, the Libyan leader “made financial crime an art, and an art that I don’t think any regime in the world today has been able to perfect to the [same] level”, Al-Gomati adds.

But in the early 2000s Gaddafi sought to whitewash Libya’s international image by building ties with the West.

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Buying influence

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