France’s top court has rejected former President Nicolas Sarkozy’s final appeal in the Bygmalion case, making a final ruling on his sentencing for illegal financing of his failed 2012 presidential campaign.
In February 2024, the Appeals Court sentenced the former French president to one year in prison, of which six months were suspended, after investigators uncovered a large-scale double-billing system designed to hide the soaring cost of the campaign — nearly €43 million spent, far above the legal limit of €22.5 million.
Concretely, Sarkozy’s UMP party campaign managers (now known as The Republicans party) used a system of false invoices to keep Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2012 campaign expenses under the legal limit.
Costs that should have been charged to Sarkozy’s campaign were billed unduly to the UMP party by Bygmalion, an events organisation company, for fictitious or lavish UMP party conventions that were in reality presidential campaign rallies.
France’s Cassation Court was not reexamining the entire case but was verifying that the law and rules of proceedings were correctly applied during the trial.
The court said it considers that the offence of illegal financing has been fully established: as a candidate, Sarkozy approved the expenditure knowing that it would exceed the limits set by law, according to a statement sent to Euronews.
The court also confirmed the involvement of his campaign manager and two UMP executives, who were accused of deliberately taking part in the scheme.
Sarkozy’s sentencing is now considered definitive by French law, with no further appeal possible.
In a statement issued by his lawyers, the former head of state said he “acknowledges the rejection of his appeal.”
“We will discuss with our client the possibility of bringing the case before the European Court of Human Rights,” they said on Wednesday.
Despite the sentence, the former head of state will not go to jail and will either be placed under partial house arrest or monitored with an electronic bracelet.
Not the only trouble for Sarkozy
In a separate case, Sarkozy was found guilty in September of criminal conspiracy in a long-running case alleging that he sought illegal financing from late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi to secure his 2007 election victory.
The Paris court handed Sarkozy a five-year prison sentence, a €100,000 fine and a five-year ban on holding public office.
He began serving that sentence at Paris’ La Sante prison, but was released some three weeks later on 10 November after an appeals court granted him release under judicial supervision.
Sarkozy is now preparing for the appeal trial in the Libyan case, scheduled for 16 March to 3 June 2026.
In December 2024, the Court of Cassation had already made Sarkozy’s conviction final in yet another case, this time involving wiretapping — also known as the Bismuth affair — sentencing him to one year of prison to be served under electronic monitoring for corruption and influence peddling.
He wore an electronic bracelet from February to May 2025 before being granted conditional release halfway through his sentence.