On November 26, 2025, France’s highest court, the Cour de cassation, is set to deliver a pivotal ruling in the Bygmalion affair, a decision that could mark another historic chapter in the legal saga surrounding former President Nicolas Sarkozy. As the country awaits the outcome, the case is drawing renewed attention to the complex web of judicial proceedings that have come to define Sarkozy’s post-presidential years—years marked by unprecedented convictions, appeals, and a cascade of allegations that have kept the former head of state in the national spotlight for all the wrong reasons.
According to Le Matin, this latest ruling is Sarkozy’s final recourse in French law regarding the Bygmalion affair. The court will decide whether to uphold or overturn his conviction for illegal financing of his failed 2012 presidential campaign. If the appeal is rejected, the Bygmalion affair will become Sarkozy’s second definitive criminal conviction, following the wiretapping case. If the court sides with Sarkozy, a new trial could be ordered, giving him one last chance to clear his name in this particular matter.
The stakes are high. As La Libre reports, the Bygmalion affair centers around campaign spending that soared to nearly 43 million euros—almost double the legal limit of 22.5 million euros. Investigations revealed a double invoicing system, where the UMP party (now known as Les Républicains) was billed for the lion’s share of campaign event costs under the guise of fictitious conventions. While Sarkozy was not personally implicated in the creation of the false invoicing scheme, he was found guilty as the beneficiary of illegal political financing, having exceeded the spending cap as a candidate.
On February 14, 2024, the Paris Court of Appeal sentenced Sarkozy to one year in prison, with six months to be served firmly. The sentence was more lenient than the one-year firm sentence imposed in 2021 at first instance, but it still carried significant weight. The court ordered that the firm portion could be served under an electronic bracelet or semi-liberty, a measure partly influenced by Sarkozy’s age—he turned 70 in 2025. The cassation procedure automatically suspended the sentence while the appeal was pending, but a rejection would make the conviction final and add to Sarkozy’s criminal record.
Throughout the proceedings, Sarkozy has consistently denied any criminal responsibility. He has called the allegations against him “fables” and “lies,” and, in both first instance and appeal, he has “vigorously contested any penal responsibility,” as quoted by Le Matin. He was not alone in appealing to the Cour de cassation; three of his co-defendants from the Bygmalion trial—Guillaume Lambert, Eric Cesari, and Pierre Chassat—also joined the appeal, each seeking to overturn their convictions.
This is not the only legal battle Sarkozy is fighting. At the end of 2024, the Cour de cassation rejected his appeal in the so-called wiretapping affair (also known as the Bismuth case), making his one-year prison sentence for corruption and influence peddling final. According to La Libre, Sarkozy was found guilty of attempting, with his lawyer Thierry Herzog, to obtain confidential information from magistrate Gilbert Azibert in exchange for the promise of support for a prestigious post in Monaco. The sentence, unprecedented for a former French president, was served under electronic bracelet from February 7 to May 14, 2025, before he was conditionally released. He is also barred from holding public office for three years as part of this conviction.
Sarkozy has appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, which is now set to examine his case. This move underscores the gravity of the situation for the former president, whose legal troubles have become a defining feature of his legacy. The wiretapping conviction was a key factor considered by the Paris correctional tribunal when, on September 25, 2025, it sentenced Sarkozy to five years in prison for criminal conspiracy in a separate case involving alleged illicit financing from Libya for his victorious 2007 presidential campaign.
The court found that Sarkozy had knowingly allowed his collaborators to solicit illegal funding from Muammar Gaddafi’s regime. He was fined 100,000 euros and issued a warrant of deposit with provisional execution, leading to his incarceration at the Santé prison in Paris for three weeks—a first in French history for a former head of state. He was released under judicial control on November 10, 2025, pending his appeal, which is scheduled for March 16 to June 3, 2026. The tribunal’s judgment noted that Sarkozy had “minimized the gravity of the facts” in the wiretapping affair, but it did not factor in the Bygmalion conviction, since it was not yet final.
Adding another twist to the saga, in October 2023, Sarkozy was indicted in an investigation into alleged fraudulent maneuvers aimed at dismissing suspicions of Libyan financing. The operation, known as “Save Sarkozy” among those involved, sought to secure the retraction of accusations by the late Ziad Takieddine, a controversial intermediary. About a dozen people, including Sarkozy’s wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy and media figure Mimi Marchand, were implicated to varying degrees. The investigation closed in early February 2025, but its repercussions continue to ripple through Sarkozy’s circle.
Sarkozy’s legal entanglements don’t end there. Since the summer of 2020, the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office has been conducting a preliminary investigation into his lucrative consulting activities in Russia, probing possible influence peddling. As reported by Mediapart, the inquiry aims to determine whether Sarkozy engaged in potentially illicit lobbying for Russian oligarchs. Meanwhile, since 2016, another investigation has been ongoing over the controversial awarding of the 2022 FIFA World Cup to Qatar, focusing in part on a 2010 lunch Sarkozy attended with Qatari officials and then-UEFA president Michel Platini.
Despite this barrage of legal woes, Sarkozy has been cleared in several high-profile cases. He benefited from dismissals in investigations related to private jet trips paid for by a close associate’s company, irregularities in the payment of 2012 campaign financing penalties, and the so-called Bettencourt affair involving allegations of exploiting the frailty of L’Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt. In each case, either the courts found insufficient evidence or Sarkozy was protected by presidential immunity, as in the matter of unauthorized polling contracts at the Élysée Palace.
Still, the shadow of conviction looms large. In early November 2025, Claude Guéant, Sarkozy’s former Élysée secretary general, was sentenced to one year of suspended prison for related offenses and has indicated plans to appeal. As Sarkozy faces the possibility of a second definitive conviction this week, his legal and political future hangs in the balance, with the spring 2026 Libyan appeal trial promising yet another dramatic act in this ongoing judicial drama.
Whatever the outcome on November 26, the saga of Nicolas Sarkozy offers a window into the evolving standards of accountability for political leaders in France—and a reminder that even the highest office provides no permanent shield from the long arm of the law.