Nicolas Sarkozy, who must already be tried at the end of 2020 in the so-called "
tapping
" case, will appear from March 17 to April 15, 2021 in a second trial on his campaign costs for the 2012 presidential election, the prosecution confirmed on Thursday from Paris.
In this case, known as "
Bygmalion
", the former president will be tried for "
illegal financing of the electoral campaign
", an offense punishable by one year in prison and a fine of 3,750 euros.
Read also: The Bygmalion case in five questions
Concretely, he is being prosecuted for having exceeded the legal threshold for electoral expenses of more than 20 million euros, despite alerts from campaign accountants in March and April 2012. A bitter procedural battle was held after the dismissal in correctional of Mr. Sarkozy by judge Serge Tournaire in February 2017.
The former head of state had challenged this decision before the Court of Cassation and the Constitutional Council, brandishing the principle of "
non bis in idem
", according to which a person cannot be sanctioned twice for the same facts. .
He felt he had already been punished definitively by the Constitutional Council in 2013, when the body had confirmed the rejection of his accounts for this overrun, which he had to reimburse.
However, this sanction related to a slippage of 363,615 euros, observed before the revelation in spring 2014 of a vast system of false invoices aimed at disguising the runaway expenses of its meetings, organized by the Bygmalion agency.
The Court of Cassation finally confirmed this referral to correctional on October 1.
Before this trial, the former head of state must appear for "
corruption
" and "
influence peddling
" from November 23 to December 10, alongside his lawyer and friend Thierry Herzog and the former high magistrate in the Court of Cassation Gilbert Azibert.
He is suspected of having attempted to obtain in early 2014, through Thierry Herzog, secret information from Gilbert Azibert in a procedure concerning the seizure of his diaries on the sidelines of the Bettencourt affair (settled for him by a non-place in 2013) and this in exchange for a helping hand for a position in Monaco.