Nicolas Sarkozy will he be the second former president sentenced under the Fifth Republic, after Jacques Chirac?
The Paris Criminal Court renders its judgment on Monday in the so-called “tapping” case, after heavy requisitions in December.
The president of the 32nd chamber, Christine Mée, must begin reading her decision from 1:30 p.m. and announce whether the former head of state is found guilty of the offenses of corruption and influence peddling, which he contests formally.
On December 8, the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) demanded against the 66-year-old ex-president four years' imprisonment, two of which were firm, considering that the presidential image had been "damaged" by this affair with "devastating effects" .
The same sentence was claimed against the two other defendants in the case, the former magistrate Gilbert Azibert and the lawyer Thierry Herzog.
The famous criminal lawyer is also being asked for a five-year ban on professional practice.
For the PNF, the corruption pact that would have been established between the three men in early 2014 to learn about and influence a procedure underway within the Court of Cassation is "something irreducible".
An approach initiated by Nicolas Sarkozy and his friend Thierry Herzog for the defense of their interests, but "by practicing an entryism within the institution and veiling it by the use of occult lines" - the famous telephone lines in the name of Paul Bismuth.
