France to Toss Their Corrupt, Right-Wing Conservative Former President in Jail

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been sent to jail for a 5-year term after being found guilty of a criminal conspiracy over attempts to raise millions of euros of illicit funds from Libya.

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Well. The much-lauded ‘American exceptionalism’ keeps taking a beating.

This time it’s our failure to act. Again.

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been sent to jail for a 5-year term in what Reuters called a “stunning downfall” after being found guilty of a criminal conspiracy over attempts to raise millions of euros of illicit funds from Libya during the rule of late dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2007.

Reuters reported:

The sentence was harsher than many expected and Sarkozy, who was president between 2007-2012, will spend time in jail even if he appeals the ruling - which he said he would do.

Sarkozy claims the case is politically motivated because he was accused of using the funds from Gaddafi for his 2007 election campaign and having promised Gaddafi help with his horrible reputation in Western countries, according to the BBC.

In exchange, the prosecution alleged Sarkozy promised to help Gaddafi combat his reputation as a pariah with Western countries.

However, the court “ruled that there was not enough evidence to find Sarkozy was the beneficiary of the illegal campaign financing."

The BBC notes the investigation was first opened way back in 2013, “two years after Saif al-Islam, son of the then-Libyan leader, first accused Sarkozy of taking millions of his father’s money for campaign funding.”

IDEOLOGY IS TO REMAIN IN POWER

Sarkozy is a right-wing conservative who stood for the French version of Reagan and Thatcher’s “New Right” at the time.

IRIS writes that he is often depicted as an extremist by US media. They also hold out that “Sarkozysm” is not a political ideology but rather “a new political strategy whose aim is to gain power, to retain or to regain public approval, and to remain in power.”

IRIS:

Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2012 presidential campaign has often been depicted as extremist by mainstream US media. He embodies a turning point in French right-wing history. He represents the French version of what was called the “New Right” in the US during the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s and in the UK during the Thatcher years. However, unlike Thatcherism or Reaganism, Sarkozysm is not a political ideology based on a set of ideas. Rather, it is a new way of being involved in French politics through a new political language and a new political strategy whose aim is to gain power, to retain or to regain public approval, and to remain in power. The main difference between what we could call a French “Old Right” and Sarkozy’s “New Right” is that the latter defines itself as a right-wing movement that defends conservative beliefs openly and without reservations. In France it is termed, “la droite décomplexée”.

And for the added cherry of irony, “Sarkozysm can be described as a populism driven by the temptation to profit from the cleavage between the people and the elites, although Nicolas Sarkozy himself embodies the French elite":