While leaving the courthouse, Carla Bruni, wife of Nicolas Sarkozy, showed her frustration with the media who were waiting for a statement from her, moments after the conviction was announced. It should be noted that the former French president was found guilty of participating in a criminal organization during the period 2005–2007, in a case concerning alleged financing of his electoral campaign by Gaddafi’s regime in Libya, with him being sentenced to one year in prison.
Sarkozy: Bruni annoyed after conviction ruling
Specifically, after Sarkozy made his statements to press representatives, Bruni followed him as he left, pushing down a reporter’s microphone. Seconds earlier, in his first comments after the sentence was announced, Sarkozy stated: “I will sleep in prison with my head held high. Today’s decision is very serious for the Rule of Law in France. More than ten years of investigation, millions of euros spent to find Libyan money that the criminal court said it could not locate in my electoral campaign. I have no desire for revenge, but I will fight until my last breath to prove that I am innocent.” It should be noted that she never left her husband Nicolas Sarkozy’s side during his trial. And on the day of his first-instance conviction, she entered the packed courtroom of the Parisian court with him, sat in the front row and remained discreetly present at a moment of maximum political and personal trial for the former president. Perhaps that’s why the image of her beside him, entering the courtroom became perhaps the most emblematic of the entire process. And she was silent – though visibly shocked – beside him when the sentence of the former French president was announced.
Carla Bruni n’est manifestement pas contente… pic.twitter.com/Egrle3xcmg
— Florian Philippot (@f_philippot) September 25, 2025
Nicolas Sarkozy: Guilty of participating in criminal organization
It is recalled that Nicolas Sarkozy was found guilty of participating in a criminal organization during the period 2005–2007, in a case concerning alleged financing of his electoral campaign by Gaddafi’s regime in Libya, while he was acquitted of charges of concealment and embezzlement of public funds and passive bribery. The case has its roots in claims from 2011 about secret financing of his 2007 campaign by Libya, with references even to a memo from Libyan secret services that spoke of amounts up to 50 million euros. Sarkozy has dismissed the documents as fake and has taken legal action for defamatory libel, but today he was convicted. Despite the legal clouds, he continues to maintain influence on the French political scene.
