SARKOZY GUILTY OF CORRUPTION!

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who was found guilty of corruption and sentenced to three years in jail by a French Court yesterday, has known both the highs and the lows in a scintillating but sulphurous political career. Sarkozy, with Hungarian antecedents and Italian super-model Carla Bruni as his current wife, was dubbed President bling-bling because of his penchant for expensive wrist watches, is most unlikely to go to jail for any time but may have to wear an electronic tag around his wrist for a year. Nevertheless the fallen President, reminiscent of Lucifer in Milton's Paradise Lost, deserves little if any sympathy. A Paris Court, a direct descendant of the French Revolutionary courts, found the President guilty of trying to bribe a judge. In truth, Sarkozy seldom allowed the law to stand in the way of his ambitions or desires. His interventions in Libya defied international law and ended with Colonel Gaddafi dead in a ditch. The incident reflects no credit on Barack Obama or David Cameron either and is at the origin of current serious unrest and violence in Libya, not to mention indirectly the disastrous plight of the Syrian people. Equally, Sarkozy did considerable damage as President of the European Council to Georgia, by NOT standing up to Russian aggression in the region and just as significantly to Ireland. Following Ireland’s rejection of the Lisbon Treaty in a referendum, Sarkozy put furious pressure on the Irish government (then Taoiseach Brian Cowen and Foreign Minister, now Taoiseach Michael Martin) to ignore the sovereign decision of the Irish people and to vote a second time on the Treaty of Lisbon. Such a second vote is not provided for in the Irish Constitution and the second vote deprived the Treaty of Lisbon, Article 50 and the subsequent BREXIT imbroglio of all legal validity in both domestic and international law. Sarkozy was a deeply divisive figure in French politics, vying unscrupulously with Marine Le Pen to gain the votes of the right and the extreme right. The tactic worked in his first run for the Presidency, but by the time his bid for re-election came around, Sarkozy's vanity, arrogance and endless quest for self-publicity and self-advancement had alienated a great many strands of decency among the French electorate. His defeat to Francois Hollande was profoundly humiliating for Sarkozy, just as Hollande’s defeat to Macron would be five years later. Sarkozy will go down in history, like Jacques Chirac before him, for corruption in domestic politics. But at least Chirac acknowledged the role of the French State in the Holocaust and passed a law making denial of the Armenian genocide illegal. Chirac also refused to get drawn in to the illegal US and British invasion of Iraq. Sarkozy for his part abused France’s position as a Permanent Member of the Security Council and as President in office of the European Council. It is ironic that his downfall should now centre on his abuse of domestic French politics. Other than die-hard loyalists, few will shed any tears for this deeply divisive and indeed quite sinister strong man of the French Right!

Maurice James, Barrister at Law, International Relations Consultant