Some days ago, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was sentenced to five years in prison by the Paris Criminal Court for criminal conspiracy related to financial contributions from the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. A dominant figure in French politics for decades, Sarkozy began as mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine (1983–2002) and later served as Minister of the Budget (1993) and Minister of the Interior (2002).
Elected President in 2007, his term was marked by major economic reforms and the challenges of the 2008 global financial crisis. After leaving office in 2012, his career was overshadowed by multiple legal cases, including the Bettencourt affair, the Bygmalion campaign financing scandal, and now the Gaddafi funding case.
However, Sarkozy’s indictment extends beyond questions of his own corrupt character as an individual; it also raises concerns about France’s foreign policy and the shadowy ways global power operates. How, then, did the former French president end up in police custody?
Gaddafi’s revelation
In 2011, seven months before his assassination, the leader of the Libyan Jamahiriya, Muammar Gaddafi, shocked the French public by claiming to have financed Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidential campaign. On April 28, 2012, between the two rounds of the French presidential election, the investigative website Mediapart published a note purported to be an official document, attesting to an agreement to fund Sarkozy’s 2007 campaign to the tune of €50 million.
To fully understand this alleged Libyan financing, it is necessary to consider the broader political context and the deteriorating relationship between the two leaders. Seemingly, Sarkozy had turned his back on his former ally. In retrospect, the historical developments leading to Gaddafi’s fall and death in October 2011 reveal this. Not surprising that he was ultimately killed by Libyan revolutionaries, notably supported by France under Sarkozy’s leadership.
French warplanes were among the first to strike Gaddafi’s forces in March 2011, following the United Nations’ authorisation of military intervention in Libya. Even more intriguing are claims that Gaddafi was executed on Sarkozy’s orders. Although French authorities have dismissed such allegations, Mahmoud Jibril, who served as interim Prime Minister following Gaddafi’s overthrow, told Egyptian TV in 2012: “It was a foreign agent who mixed with the revolutionary brigades to kill Gaddafi.” It has therefore been suggested that the execution aimed to prevent potentially embarrassing revelations about Sarkozy’s campaign funding.
Sarkozy and Côte d’Ivoire’s 2011 presidential crisis
Due to his role in the violent outcome of the Ivorian crisis, and more specifically, in the fall of former President Laurent Gbagbo, Nicolas Sarkozy’s final conviction by the French courts did not go unnoticed by pro-Gbagbo supporters, who reiterate that Nicolas Sarkozy is an enemy of Africa.
Former Minister of Economic Infrastructure and spokesperson for Laurent Gbagbo’s government, Ahoua Don Mello, vice president of the African People’s Party (PPA-CI), a party led by former President Gbagbo, said that “an enemy of the Ivorian left and of sovereign Africa has just been neutralized,” which is “a good thing,” he added, even though he acknowledges that this “sentence is out of all proportion to his crimes committed in Côte d’Ivoire, Libya, and the Sahel following the massacres that terrorists continue to perpetrate after the fall of Gaddafi.”
Nicolas Sarkozy played a significant role in the fall of Laurent Gbagbo in April 2011, boasting to the Western media that he had ousted Gbagbo in favour of Alassane Ouattara. The Ivorian crisis arose as a result of Sarkozy’s direct intervention in the Ivorian electoral process. He had, without having the right to do so, written to the Independent Electoral Commission, asking it to announce the election results, even though it had lost control due to the imposed deadlines.
Conclusion
Sarkozy’s conviction is yet another mirror held up to the hypocrisy of Western power. He was a man, like other Western leaders, who would lecture Africa on governance. But now stands condemned by his own justice system. His story reminds us that behind the polished speeches of “democracy promotion” often lies a web of greed, manipulation, and betrayal. Today, as Sarkozy faces prison, even though delayed and not significant, it reminds us that one day, justice will catch up with perpetrators of evil across Africa and the world.
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