PREVIEW
Former president sought funds from Gadaffi in return for support
The conviction of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy of criminal conspiracy is an indictment of the murky operations at the heart of Françafrique, the French government’s influence-peddling in countries it once controlled.
Judge Nathalie Gavarino said Sarkozy had ‘allowed his close collaborators and political supporters over whom he had authority and who acted in his name’ to approach former Libyan leader Colonel Moammar el Gadaffi’s officials ‘in order to obtain or attempt to obtain financial support’.
Sarkozy, who served one term as president between 2007 and 2012, was accused of making a deal with Gadaffi in 2005, when he was interior minister, to obtain campaign financing in exchange for supporting the then-isolated Libyan government on the international stage (Dispatches, 31/3/25, Claims of secret deal with Gadaffi in Sarkozy’s corruption trial).
That included a promise to lift the arrest warrant against Gadaffi’s brother-in-law and intelligence chief Abdullah el Senussi.
In December 2007, months after Sarkozy’s May presidential election win over Ségolène Royal, France agreed to sell Libya 21 Airbus aircraft and the two countries signed a nuclear cooperation agreement.
Sarkozy was acquitted on more serious charges of illegal campaign financing and passive corruption but still faces a five-year prison sentence, regardless of whether he appeals the verdict, which he described as an ‘attack on the image of France’.
In 2012, the French investigative outlet Mediapart published what it said was a Libyan intelligence memo referencing a €50 million campaign funding agreement. But Gadaffi did not get much for his money. In 2011, Sarkozy joined the United Kingdom and United States’ military operation in Libya that led to Gadaffi’s ousting and execution during the Arab Spring.
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