Nicolas Sarkozy is under investigation for illegal financing of his electoral campaign in 2012 and sees the possibility of returning to the Elysée elusive. The decision was made yesterday evening by the French magistrates at the end of a day of interrogations. The judges identified 13 and a half million of "presidential" expenses while only 3 million had been communicated in the official accounts.
Sarkozy's lawyer pointed out that his client is being investigated for "a formal infringement" of the law and recalled that "the Constitutional Council, with a definitive sentence, has already ruled on this overrun of the electoral campaign's budget, inflicting a penalty" which the former head of state has already gotten rid of.
The lawyers will appeal, but underline the fact that the judges have excluded all responsibility for Sarkozy for what is defined as the "Bygmalion case", a traffic of counterfeit invoices always in the context of financing the electoral campaign.
The former president of the French Republic is today the head of the right-wing opposition of the Republicains and is in full political activity in view of the 2017 presidential elections. His main opponent in the right-wing primaries will be Alain Juppé, who collects about 40% of the voting intentions, against 30% for Sarko.
The new investigation could weigh on the prices of the former President, who since July 2014 has already been under investigation for corruption and influence trading in the case linked to an interception between him and his lawyer Thierry Herzog. The conversation revealed an attempt to obtain confidential information from a magistrate on the case of bribes to the parties of the billionaire Bettencourt. In return, an intervention was promised to grant that judge an important post in the Principality of Monaco.
