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00:00Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has lost an appeal against his 2021 conviction
00:09for corruption and influence peddling.
00:12On Wednesday, France's highest court upheld the decision, which handed Sarkozy a three-year
00:18prison sentence.
00:19Now, two of those years were suspended, and Sarkozy would be allowed to wear an electronic
00:24monitoring bracelet instead of going to prison for the last year.
00:28The court's decision today means Sarkozy will have to wear the bracelet and will be
00:33ineligible to run for office for three years.
00:37Sarkozy is a conservative who remains an important figure in French politics.
00:41His lawyer says he will appeal the case to the European Court of Human Rights.
00:51Nicolas Sarkozy's appeal has just been rejected by the French Supreme Court, which we consider
00:56contrary to precedents set by the European Court of Human Rights.
01:00It's the first time in France that a person has been found guilty on the sole basis of
01:04intercepted communications with his lawyer.
01:07That being the case, Nicolas Sarkozy will, as he always said he would if he was not satisfied
01:13by the decision of French judges, appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.
01:23For more on Sarkozy's case, let's cross live to Andrew Smith.
01:27He is a historian of modern France and a lecturer in liberal arts at Queen Mary University of
01:32London.
01:33Thank you so much for being here with us.
01:35I'd like to get just your reaction to the news of Sarkozy losing his appeal over these
01:40corruption charges.
01:42Was the verdict a surprise?
01:43Well, I think at this stage, it's not so much a surprise.
01:48It's all been about this technical ruling over whether or not this wiretapping evidence
01:56was admissible.
01:57Of course, this wiretapping evidence was all about essentially a cover up seemingly about
02:03another corruption scandal.
02:07What was going on is essentially between his lawyer and himself, there was a sort of discussion
02:12about whether or not they could try and find out some information and find out a little
02:15bit more about what was going on from a judge, from a senior magistrate.
02:21And the idea was that maybe if he could get a little bit of information, then he might
02:24get a sort of plumb post in Monaco as a sort of kickback.
02:29And so really, this is all about peddling influence and trying to kind of reward favor.
02:33But it was to do with investigating yet another corruption scandal, you know, this nested
02:40array of scandals that Sarkozy has kind of gotten himself into.
02:45So in that sense, I think it's not really a surprise.
02:48It is something which is, I guess, right.
02:52He's being punished for this corruption.
02:54It's a signal that that type of corruption isn't welcome in politics.
02:58And the hope is that, you know, it helps clean up what's going on in a wider basis in Paris.
03:05And Andrew, that intercepted communications with his lawyer.
03:08That's what his lawyer was saying is the basis for appealing to the European Court of Human
03:14Rights.
03:15Can you explain a little bit more why he can do this, how he can take this to the European
03:20court?
03:22The the argument is that, first of all, these are conversations between him and his lawyer
03:29and they should be confidential, they shouldn't be broadcast in this way as part of this.
03:34The idea is also that around when the wiretapping was happening, there was another parallel
03:42investigation about trying to flush out a mole, which was going on at the same time.
03:46And so it's an argument about the actual process through which these recordings were made and
03:50whether or not they are admissible evidence of this.
03:53And so what he's going to the European Court of Human Rights about to kind of appeal this
03:58further to the high court is around this idea of the conversation between him and his lawyer.
04:03For him, it was a sort of conversation.
04:05He was testing the ground.
04:06He was just speaking openly to a lawyer, not actually implicating himself.
04:12But of course, what the court has found is that this was evidence that there was wrongdoing
04:17going on.
04:18So it's all about this idea of whether or not a conversation with a lawyer can be listened
04:21into, whether or not that can implicate you in a wider system of corruption and whether
04:26or not that's admissible evidence in the court.
04:28And that's where the human rights element comes into here.
04:31What do you think that this decision could mean for Sarkozy's political future and the
04:37future of the right-wing Republican Party, which has been drastically weakened since
04:42Sarkozy was president, we should say?
04:44Yeah, absolutely.
04:45I mean, it's a bad day for Sarkozy, of course.
04:49We've got this appeal rejected for him.
04:53We know there is another corruption trial around campaign funding and the accusation
05:00of receiving Libyan funds as part of his presidential campaign, which will take place
05:06in January, just coming at the start of next year.
05:09That trial will open then.
05:10So of course, there is more to come for Sarkozy in this sort of, you know, kind of scandal
05:16hit presidency which he presided over.
05:19It's bad in the sense for him, he is inadmissible, he's ineligible in taking part in politics.
05:24Likewise, it's a bad day for him because, of course, Beirut, his longtime rival who
05:29we know he doesn't get on well with, is now in the post of prime minister.
05:35So his political family is not doing well.
05:37He personally is not doing well.
05:39And it really doesn't bode well for the RĂ©publicain.
05:42We know, of course, they split in the summer when you had Chioti try to kind of move towards
05:48the far right, L'Assemblée nationale, National Rally.
05:52We had a kind of a kind of stay, you know, stay true section, a kind of rump Republican
05:59party under Laurent Wauquiez, who tried to kind of stand true to this Republican arc.
06:04So there's a real challenge around what the future of it is.
06:07Does it get swallowed up by the center?
06:09And can it declare itself independent from Emmanuel Macron's majority?
06:14Or whether the kind of governing majority in that sense?
06:17Or do they cleave closer, ever closer to the far right?
06:20And do they lose themselves there?
06:21So it's a real challenge for that political family of the Republicans to articulate some
06:26difference and find themselves a role in this very difficult political moment in France.
06:32And for our viewers who maybe don't follow French politics as closely, have Sarkozy's
06:39legal troubles, have they made him a sort of political pariah?
06:43Are his supporters standing by him?
06:45I mean, he has been a very popular figure in France.
06:50Yeah, absolutely.
06:51So Sarkozy hasn't really been playing an active political role.
06:55He's been in the kind of the background, as it were, a sort of impresario, and it was
07:00often seen that the future of the Republicans sort of often lay in different political figures
07:06at the head of the Republican Party, sort of courting the influence of Sarkozy and courting
07:12his kind of, you know, advice and support.
07:15And we've even seen the kind of accusations that some like Emmanuel Macron are still interested
07:20in finding out the sort of opinions that people like Sarkozy have on current affairs.
07:24He seemed to be an influential figure who sort of revitalized the Republican Party and
07:30took it in a different direction.
07:31He's someone who is a charismatic figure as a former president.
07:35And it's really part of this, this lingering influence.
07:38So he hasn't been a frontline political player, but he's been a very influential player in
07:42the background of French politics and sort of, you know, really kind of moving the chess
07:47pieces on the board, we might say, for the centre right.
07:51Well, like you said, this is not his only legal trouble.
07:55He will be back in court next year.
07:57If you could, please, Andrew, stay with us, because I would like to now turn to the government
08:03formation drama going on here in Paris.
08:06French President Emmanuel Macron will once again host his prime minister, François Bayrou,
08:11on Wednesday afternoon at the Elysee Palace.
08:13The goal is to try to move forward on the cabinet in hopes of having a government formed soon.
08:19Bayrou has only been prime minister for mere days, and he has made a splash, but not for
08:24the reasons he would hope.
08:26So lawmakers are outraged right now at him because he attended a Mayotte crisis meeting
08:32online Monday, then spent the rest of his evening leading a town hall meeting in the
08:37southwestern city of Pau, where he is still mayor.
08:41And then yesterday, Tuesday, he faced lawmakers in Parliament.
08:44And let's just say they were not impressed by his performance.
08:47So, Andrew Smith, anyone tuning in, historian of modern France, you're still with us.
08:53It's no surprise that the new prime minister isn't getting the warmest welcome in Parliament.
08:58But what do you make of this anger over Bayrou going to Pau and attending a town hall meeting?
09:05Yeah, it's a real challenge.
09:08François Bayrou has tried to defend himself by saying he wants to, you know, you shouldn't
09:12have the regions of France disconnected from power in Paris.
09:16But, of course, he was, you know, part of the legislative that voted through the laws
09:24which separated this cumul des mandats, the accumulation of different posts, which essentially
09:30banned people from being kind of national political figures, from holding a national
09:34role like a deputy in the assembly or a cabinet member or so on, or prime minister for that
09:40case, with having a local kind of municipal role, such as the mayoralty of a town.
09:45And for years, decades in French history, that's always been the case.
09:49You know, frequently people held these posts as the mayor of a small town and then would
09:53also be a kind of national political figure at the same time.
09:57But since the passing of that law, of course, we've seen other prime ministers, Edouard
10:02Philippe, of course, in the Havre, Jean Castex, of course, also gave up his post as a mayor.
10:08And that was really, had become the trend, had become the accepted model.
10:12Now, François Bayrou wants to kind of move back on that, wants to say actually he wants
10:16to continue working in Pau.
10:18And, of course, he's been criticised because, as we heard, he phoned it in, literally joined
10:24by video call the crisis meeting.
10:27And of course, we see people like Yael Blanc-Prive from the central bloc, from Renaissance, from
10:33Macron's party, say, well, she'd much rather have seen him flying on a plane to Mayotte
10:38trying to engage in those crisis meetings and support what's going on there, rather
10:42than flying out to Pau and holding a minute's silence, not as prime minister, but instead
10:47as the mayor.
10:48That's a big challenge about judging where the kind of authority lies and where action
10:53can actually be taken.
10:54So there is a kind of slightly unusual point within this.
10:56And it really has been a very unwelcome scandal at the start of François Bayrou's prime ministerial
11:02term.
11:03And one final question for you, Emmanuel Macron and Bayrou, they're meeting again at the Elysee
11:08Palace.
11:09Can you just shine a little bit of light on their relationship for us?
11:14Have they historically been aligned politically?
11:17And what's their relationship like now that they're having to work together to try to
11:21dig us out of a crisis?
11:24Well, yeah, historically, they've worked very closely together.
11:27Of course, François Bayrou tried to do for many years as a longtime presidential candidate
11:32for Modem, for the centrists, what Emmanuel Macron did, you know, essentially take some
11:37from the right to the centre-left and the left to the centre-right, as it were, to form
11:43this centrist government.
11:44In 2017, it was the making of Emmanuel Macron's presidential run when François Bayrou endorsed
11:50him as a central candidate and actually supported him and joined his team.
11:55Of course, then he joined the government as a very short-running justice minister, stepping
12:00down a month later because he faced all sorts of difficulties around legal trouble around
12:10the funding of parliamentary assistance, which was dismissed at the moment, roughly the same
12:14thing that Marine Le Pen is being tried for at the minute as well.
12:18However, they've worked very closely together.
12:21Bayrou has often been a sort of independent figure.
12:23He refused to join the government under Gabriel Attal.
12:26And we've seen a couple of moments.
12:27We heard before he was invited to become prime minister, there were some stormy discussions
12:31which happened in which Bayrou demanded to be able not to be a sort of figurehead for
12:37a right-wing government, but have some authority.
12:39And there's been some discussion about whether or not he's been able to exercise that authority
12:43and claw back some separation of powers to put back some authority in the assembly, in
12:48the formation of this government.
12:50What he's trying to do is he's met, Bayrou has met representatives from right across
12:55the spectrum, except for the far left.
12:58He's not met from France Insoumise, but he's trying to piece together what he's calling
13:02a government of the personalities, uniting people from the left and the right.
13:07He's trying to assert that independence from Emmanuel Macron, and there's really some negotiation
13:12that's going to be going on.
13:13They've met twice already.
13:14They're going to meet again today.
13:15And we know that Emmanuel Macron will be flying out on Thursday to go to Mayotte as part of
13:20that crisis response.
13:21We know they want a government in place before Christmas.
13:25We have, of course, that emergency law, which is passing through the Senate just now, which
13:29will allow and prevent a government shutdown.
13:31But nonetheless, France needs a government.
13:34France needs to be represented in the assembly by a government which can actually enact policy,
13:39which can pass a proper budget.
13:42And that's what Bayrou is trying to do today.
13:43So let's see where these discussions go with Macron today.
13:47Can't say that enough.
13:48France needs a government.
13:50Andrew Smith, historian of modern France.
13:53Thank you so much for spending part of your day with us here on France 24.
13:55We always appreciate your great analysis.
13:58Thanks so much.