Tristan Redman

These are still the early days of Sarkazys five-year presidency, and the activity is fast and furious. And in the middle of it all, he even divorces his wife Cecilia, and then in short order he meets and marries an Italian supermodel, Carla Bruni.

It's a lot. But quietly in the background, stories begin to emerge in the French press. Stories that in the noise of the Sarkozy presidency, few people may have noticed. They're some of the earliest reports about the money that had been spent in his presidential campaign.

Newspapers report that Sarkazys' 2007 campaign was the most expensive in French history. At first, nobody's saying there's anything unusual about any of this, just that lots of money was spent. But gradually, the question of the campaign finances begins to attract more attention. This is journalist Fabrice Arfi. No doubt.

The suspicion was that there had been mountains of cash, bundles of banknotes, which were used to pay the people on the campaign without any of it being declared. Now, this is important because campaign funding is strictly controlled in France. There's a limit to how much you can spend. And in 2007, that was 21,5 million euros. And Sarkozy's campaign was right on the limit. At the very end of the campaign...

There's so much cash left over at the end of the election, so many big banknotes, that the campaign managers don't know what to do with them. The treasurer and his deputy said there was so much of it that they even considered destroying it.

It's not clear what they did do with this cash in the end. Sarkozy's 2007 campaign says that its finances have all been okayed and signed off. And the treasurer says this extra cash was sent in as anonymous donations. But the judge in Sarkozy's trial says that nobody working on the campaign remembers receiving any envelopes of cash in the party mailroom. If that's true...

I'm Tristan Redman, and this is the Sarkozy affair. This is Danielle Klein again. Her brother was killed in the plane bombing. At this point in our story, it's December 2007. Nicolas Sarkozy has been president for six months, and his romance with Carla Bruni is blossoming. Danielle's on her scooter in Paris. She's on her way to work.

Gaddafi on kutsuttu Pariisiin kolmannen päivän valtioon. Hän soittaa Bedouin-tenttä yläpuolelle Alizeen ja tapahtuu Sarkozyn palassa. Hän kututtuu rauhassa, kaksi henkilöä heittävät kappaleita ja he kutsuvat kameroihin. Silloin Danielin naisen Melanie, joka on loppunut isänsä polttoaineen, katsoo kaikkea.

Olin New Yorkissa. Puhuin yhden vuoden New Yorkissa opiskelijoillani. Minulla oli jotkut franssit, jotka katsoivat TV. Ja nopeasti en saanut ääntä. Näin vain kaunisista kuvista Kadhafiista, jotka kävelevät käsiä Sarkozin kanssa. Kerroin itselleen, että wow.

And people notice, first the media and then the Elysee. The families are invited to the palace to meet the president just after Gaddafi leaves. And it's the first time that any French president has agreed to meet them. When Sarkozy arrives, he's attentive.

They hadn't expected to be asked anything like this and they don't really have any questions up their sleeve. Why not a visit to the crash site in the Sahara? That would be great. It's not somewhere they could get on their own steam. He promised us the presidential plane, Danielle told me. And what about outstanding compensation for some of the families? Yep.

No problem, that would be sorted too. None of these promises ever materialized, Danielle says. But in the moment, she was impressed.

Katsotaanpa muutama vuosi. Se on 2011 ja Gaddafiin maailma on muuttunut dramaattisesti sen vuoksi, kun hän on tullut Pariisiin. Arabin kevät on saapunut Libiaan ja hänin hallitus on vahvistettu. Tunisian ja Egyptin hallitukset ovat jo olemassa. Sarkozi on yksi very first western leaders to back the Libyan rebels against Gaddafi. Gaddafi launches a counteroffensive.

I was in Libya back then and I witnessed the ferocity of Gaddafi's forces firsthand. Gaddafi's military is advancing and it's feared there could be a massacre of civilians in the city of Benghazi.

Sarkozy vastaa. Hän yhdistää maailmanlaajuisen koaliton, johon on vahvistettu Ruotsi, jotta vahvistetaan sotilaskykyä. Ja se on yllättävää asiaa ottaa, koska suomalaiset presidentit ovat usein vahvistaneet sotilaskykyä.

Back in Tripoli, international journalists are covering the war from the side of the Libyan government. Gaddafi's son gives an exclusive interview to the channel Euronews. Saif al-Islam is asked his opinion of President Sarkozy, and he drops a bombshell.

Sarkozy must repay Libya the money he took for his election campaign. We financed his election campaign and we have all details and we're ready to publish them. This is a huge allegation and it comes out of almost nowhere. The first thing we ask of this clown Sarkozy is to repay this money to the Libyan people. We helped him become president so that he would help the Libyan people, but he's disappointed us.

and very soon we'll publish all the details and the documents and the bank payslips. The Élysée strongly denies it, and the French press are reluctant to take it too seriously, because the Gaddafis have got plenty of reasons to sling Mardit Sarkozy.

And then, one day in October 2011, a NATO airstrike hits a road convoy in central Libya. A short while later, Muammar Gaddafi is found hiding, injured in a drainpipe near the wreckage of the convoy. A mob descends on him, and in the chaos Gaddafi is murdered. It's a brutal end to his 40-year dictatorship.

But in the elation that followed, there was one detail that didn't gain much attention. The plane that fired on Gaddafi's convoy and that led to the mob, that led to the dictator's murder, it was a jet of the NATO coalition and it was from the French Air Force. Back in France, Fabrice Arfi receives a message.