The former president and 2017 presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy could be fined €3,750 and imprisoned for a year if, as recommended by the Paris prosecutor's office, he is tried and convicted for illegal campaign financing in 2012.
The prosecutor’s indictment dated August 30th became public knowledge on Monday. Lawyers for Mr Sarkozy and 13 co-accused now have one month to present their arguments before investigating magistrates decide whether to send them to trial.
"This is another crude political manoeuvre that will not hold up to examination any more than the others," Mr Sarkozy's lawyer Thierry Herzog said in a statement. "The others" refer to four financial scandals in which Mr Sarkozy has been cleared.
The prosecutor believes that Mr Sarkozy had to have known that the events company Bygmalion sent €18 million in bogus bills to his conservative UMP party to hide the fact that the former president surpassed legal limits on campaign spending.
The investigation was later extended to another €13.5 million in dubious expenditure by the UMP. After the scandal, Mr Sarkozy re-christened the UMP Les Républicains or LR.
Mr Herzog drew a parallel between the accusations against Mr Sarkozy and the opening day of the trial of Jérôme Cahuzac, the former socialist budget minister who hid money in a Swiss bank account while he was responsible for pursuing tax evaders.
The judges' decision will fall perilously close to the LR presidential primary on November 20th and 27th. Francois Fillon, an LR candidate who served as Mr Sarkozy's prime minister, recently questioned his former boss's probity, saying no one could imagine Gen Charles de Gaulle, the spiritual father of French conservatives, being placed under investigation.
The LR nominee is considered likely to win the presidential contest in April and May 2017. Polls show Mr Sarkozy tied with former prime minister Alain Juppé for the first round of the primary, but losing to Mr Juppé in the runoff.
Mr Sarkozy is still under formal investigation, with his lawyer Mr Herzog, for allegedly corrupting the supreme court judge Gilbert Azibert in connection with the Bettencourt affair, in which Mr Sarkozy was cleared for lack of evidence of having abused the frailty of France's richest woman to obtain campaign donations.
Christine Lagarde, the director of the IMF, was sent to trial on July 22nd for allowing a sham arbitration to award €405 million to Bernard Tapie, a friend of Mr Sarkozy, in 2008 when she was finance minister. Mr Sarkozy enjoys immunity in the Tapie affair because he was president at the time.
Magistrates are also investigating whether Mr Sarkozy received campaign funds from Muammar Gadafy in 2007, and allegations that a close adviser profited illegally from contracts for opinion polls during Mr Sarkozy’s presidency.
The prosecutor’s indictment, quoted by Le Monde, states that Mr Sarkozy “was the prime beneficiary and the principal giver of orders, since he took all final decisions . . . He knew what he was doing when he gave instructions to increase spending, against the accountants recommendations.”
