The Mediapart journalist, who helped to reveal the Libyan financing affair, deplores that the trial of Nicolas Sarkozy was followed very little by the press, despite the seriousness of the facts.
:quality(50)/2023/07/07/64a7df4c5fe71_placeholder-36b69ec8.png)
Published
Reading time: 3min
:quality(50)/2025/10/23/maxnewsfrfive915947-68fa3cd129485162453538.jpg "Sarkozy Judgment: ...'s Arfi Criticizes Media Coverage")
Fabrice Arfi at the trial of Nicolas Sarkozy in the case of suspected Libyan financing of his 2007 presidential campaign, in January 2025. (ALEXIS SCIARD / MAXPPP)” width=”432″ height=”243″ src=”https://www.franceinfo.fr/pictures/KFxzqVATs9h3jEudtfD6_mVbDE4/0x130:5422×3178/432×243/filters:format(jpg)/2025/10/23/maxnewsfrfive915947-68fa3cd129485162453538.jpg” fetchpriority=”high”/>
Mediapart journalist Fabrice Arfi denounces, Thursday October 23 on France Inter, a “cultural and media failure of not wanting to take major corruption cases seriously“, after the trial and conviction of Nicolas Sarkozy. The former President of the Republic was sentenced in September to five years in prison for criminal conspiracy in the case of suspected Libyan financing of his 2007 presidential campaign. He appealed this decision.
Guest of the show “Sensitive matters” – recorded Wednesday and broadcast Thursday on France Inter – Fabrice Arfi says he regrets the lack of in-depth follow-up of this issue by the press and of what is precisely being criticized against Nicolas Sarkozy. “We can consider, given the legal intrigue, that we were probably faced with the biggest trial of violation of probity than the Ve Republic, at least, has never known. With on the dock, a former President and three former ministers“, recalls Fabrice Arfi, whose media largely revealed the affair.
“And yet, there were around ten of us journalists, all from the written press, who followed the entire 38 half-day hearing. There was not a TV that followed the entire trial, whereas for an assassination trial, for example recently the trial of Cédric Jubillar, the TVs were there” and the public was aware of every detail of the case. For the Libyan financing affair, “there was a huge absence“from the press, according to the journalist,”unlike the public who came en masse to the court to witness this historic trial“.
For Fabrice Arfi, “there is a French cultural and therefore also media failure in not wanting to take major cases of corruption and attacks on integrity seriously, as if they were only small, more or less spectacular news stories“, he regrets. As if that didn’t tell the story”something, beyond the facts and the people, extremely profound about a tragedy which corrodes the very spirit of the Republic and democracy. That’s what violations of probity are all about.“, he said. He also recalls the seriousness of the facts, including “the Paris Criminal Court said it was exceptional“.
The Mediapart journalist hopes that the appeal trial will shed new light and new attention on the merits of the case. “I have the impression that in the media, this affair was born with the judgment. And so maybe there will finally be immense media attention on the appeal trial and everyone will be able to see what we [Mediapart] see and say what they saw“, he believes.
