Back in December 2007, Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi enters Paris with a hundred limousines, stopped the movement, stretched his Bedouin tent in the garden of the Marini Hotel against the Elisian Palace and went hunting near Versailles.
It was a scene that caused outrage throughout France. Because at that time, Colonel Gaddafi had been in power almost four decades after a military coup in 1969. During this time, he had canceled the laws and replaced them with his own, burned books, banned private business, killed dissidents in the country and abroad, had removed the freedom of expression and used the huge oil reserves of the country to rear Not to mention that it was thought to be behind the bombing of Lockerby in 1988, with 259 people on board on a passenger plane on PAN AM and 11 on the ground.
What made the visit even more unusually, however, was the fact that the despot was personally invited to Paris by the newly appointed French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Eighteen years later, the seemingly criminal and certainly unscrupulous Sarkozy relationship with the late dictator returns to pursue him.
Yesterday, the former owner of the Elysee Palace was sentenced to five years in prison and was ordered to pay a fine of 100,000 euros for a “criminal conspiracy” related to the obtaining illegal funds for a pre -election campaign by the Gaddafi regime in exchange for diplomatic services – namely the smoothing of Libya’s relations.
The former French leader has been found innocent of all other charges, including passive corruption and illegal campaign funding. Although this is an extremely complicated case that puzzles many in France, the quarterly process essentially concluded that Sarkozy and his team (consisting of 11 reporters) have agreed to receive funding for a Libya election campaign, but that the president was not personally involved and nor were they used for this purpose.
However, Sarkozy will soon become the first president in the over 200-year history of the republic to endure prison after the judge announced that he should be removed, despite his expected appeal. (In France, the sentences are usually postponed until the appeal case is considered.) The exact starting date of his sentence will be communicated by a judge within one month, the Le Monde newspaper reported.
“This injustice is a scandal,” Sarkozy told the courtroom yesterday. “I ask the French people, whether or not he voted for me or not, whether he supports me or not, to realize what has just happened. Hate really knows no boundaries, “were Sarkozy’s words after the process.
This is a huge fall for a person who rose to the national famousness of the age of 38 in 1993, first as mayor of Neuilly Syur Saint, casually enrolled in a kindergarten in the region to negotiate the release of babies hostage from a man-dressed vest with dynamite before he himself removed the children one by one.
Its popularity was extremely high, and Sarkozy was eventually elected president in 2007 with an impressive 53% of the vote. Sarkozy held the post until 2012.
During this time, he won the nickname “President Blang” because of his wasteful lifestyle, which included trips with a modernized Airbus A330, a marriage to Carla Bruni – a supermodel, 12 years younger than it – and parking of 121 cars in front of the Elysee Palace, where the guests on the ground were drawn to the Crooz bottles Lunch.
For a person who promised “transparent” and “flawless” management, Sarkozy failed to justify his own promises very quickly.
Just a year after taking office, Sarkozy ordered the renovation of Airbus, which will be used for official purposes and which he duly called “Air Sarko One”. The £ 215 million bill was twice as large as the originally declared. Among the improvements were a new bread oven and state-of-the-art electric blinds at a price of £ 900,000.
The only problem with the aircraft, however, was its huge size, which meant that many French airports could not fit it. It is significant that it included a cabin with 60 seats in club class for privileged guests and standard class for 12 passengers, designed for less close to the president.
A book by the French socialist MP Rene Dosier later revealed that flights aboard Air Sarko One usually cost about £ 700 per minute. Other presidential expenses discovered by a file include £ 58 million a year for over £ 1,000, £ 10,000 a day for food and drink, £ 200,000 a year for flowers and £ 1,000 a day for multiple newspapers.
Two divorces and another marriage
In the second year of his presidency, twice divorced Sarkozy married the self -proclaimed “men’s tamer” Carla Bruni. It is alleged that they were secretly married only 80 days after their dating, so that, on an upcoming visit to Windsor Castle, Queen Elizabeth to allow the couple to share a common bedroom.
Bruni, of course, was a legend in itself, famous for spicy photo shoots in the 1990s, becoming one of the 20 best paid models in the world and once won $ 7.5 million in a year. By the time she opted for Sarkozy, the beauty had already had ties to Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger and even said she had an affair with Donald Trump.
With a glamorous model on hand and a pop star, Sarkozy has developed a more expensive taste and has often been shot in extravagant designer clothes, including a pair of Ray Ban sunglasses with gold frames.
His nickname “President Bling Bling” comes from the fact that he once wore a Rolex Daytona clock publicly. But this was by no means the most expensive clock in a collection, which also included Girard-Perregaux 1966 and Patek Philippe of white gold for £ 48,000, which, while shaking supporters in 2012, he shamefully tore his wrist and put them in his pocket on his storage jacket. The conclusion was clear – he didn’t seem to believe in some French voters.
At one point, Sarkozy even started wearing a gold chain around his neck after being filmed on an Egyptian beach wearing the medallion alongside Bruni, dressed in bronze bikinis-a scene made even more absurd than the fact that Sarkozy is 165 cm tall and his wife is 12 centimeters tall.
Sarkozy’s growth has long been a joke, with Bruni gently calling it “my little cho.”
But since the French economy fought after the 2008 financial crisis, Sarkozy’s lifestyles are contrary to the values ​​of “freedom, equality and brotherhood”.
Maybe never again than in 2012, when he sent a medical delegation to Ukraine with a Falcon 50 jet after his son Pierre called home, complaining about an upset stomach. From the £ 22,000 account, Sarkozy recovered £ 6,400, leaving French taxpayers to share the remaining £ 15,600.
Since he was removed from his post in 2012, Sarkozy has been chased by accusations of dubious deals, which has led to his deprivation of the Order of the Honorary Legion, the highest distinction of France, in June this year.
In 2021, he was found guilty in an attempt to bribe a magistrate, which ended with the shame of wearing an electronic label for three months.
In February last year, he was found guilty of spending during his 2012 re -election campaign, after which a PR company hired it to cover it. But none of this seems to have disturbed him.
“If they want me to sleep in prison,” Sarkozy said yesterday, “I’ll sleep in prison, but with a high head.”
The irony has certainly not escaped the president, whose wife once sang that he “loves to make a king” – that the last Frenchman who played a monarch was headless.
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