Tristan Redman

Monsieur Mank, what I'm hearing you say is that Mr Sarkozy is guilty really only of surrounding himself or having acquaintances with people who have harmed him. Yes, I think so. He's bad at choosing his friends. I think Nicolas Sarkozy is a man who is too kind. He never got rid of people he should have got rid of.

Before we get to the court case, let's take a time out.

Because at the trial there are some important voices who are missing. We're talking about people with salient information who can't be there. Some of them we'll never hear from again. First up, there's someone called Shukri Ghanem. He was Gaddafi's oil minister. In 2012, after the Gaddafi government fell, he was found dead in Vienna, floating in the Danube River. Austrian investigators say he died of a heart attack.

There are people who question that. After he died, the police found his diaries. And inside them, Ghanem had written in detail about an alleged deal to finance Sarkozy's 2007 campaign. His body was discovered in the river the day after the media part allegations were first published.

Ja sitten on Bashir Saleh. Hän on Gaddafiin parhaimmat autot. Hän on edelleen elämässä ja hän tietää paljon asioita. Hän ei ole kokeillut, koska hän on sairaus Suomessa. Hän on sairaus Suomessa. Hän on sairaus Suomessa.

Once he arrived in South Africa, someone tried to kill him. He survived, but he's still a fugitive.

Ja sitten on Zian Takidin, keskustelijana. Hän käänti niitä arvioita käsikäyksistä TV-intervjuun BFM-kanavalla vuonna 2020. Parissa on pieni palkki, jossa hän sanoo, että Mr. Sarkozy ei ole koskaan saanut kampanjan rahoja Muamma Gaddafiin.

But the interview was so bizarre that the police were curious. They examined it and placed both Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni under formal investigation for witness tampering. Sarkozy and Bruni both deny it. But either way, Takedin definitely won't be coming to the trial because he's dead of natural causes while a fugitive in Lebanon. Okay, time out over. It's time for the trial.

Sarkozy on rikollisessa rikollisessa rikollisessa rikollisessa rikollisessa rikollisessa rikollisessa rikollisessa rikollisessa rikollisessa rikollisessa rikollisessa rikollisessa rikollisessa rikollisessa rikollisessa rikollisessa.

Danielle tells the court that her brother Jean-Pierre was fascinated with politics. How the families of the DC-10 victims had fought hard for years. And how painful it was to learn that high-ranking members of the government had met face to face with Abdullah Senussi. She calls them cowards.

The first one, corruption, not guilty. The second, illegal campaign financing, not guilty. The third, embezzlement of public funds, not guilty.

And then the fourth charge, conspiracy to commit a crime. Sarkozy is found guilty. Guilty of plotting to obtain funding from a foreign state. The quid pro quo, judges say, was helping Libya gain acceptance on the world stage and turning a blind eye to Abdullah Senussis terrorism conviction. The judge calls it a crime of, quote, exceptional seriousness. And the sentence is five years in jail.

And when she said Nicolas Sarkozy's sentence, nobody speak, but there was, because we were so many people in the room, I heard the, very loud. I will keep this moment in me forever. There'll be no electronic tag for Sarkozy, no house arrest. He'll be the first and only president of the Fifth Republic to go to jail.

And in France, if you appeal, you're considered innocent until all the appeals are finished. But controversially, the court instructs Sarkozy to present himself to prison soon. It's a highly unusual move. In the days that follow, Sarkozy says that judges are out to destroy him.

A former president on his way to prison. Nicolas Sarkozy left his home this morning and to cries of support from a small crowd walked with his wife Carla Bruni down to a waiting car. He arrives at the prison with pullovers, earplugs and a novel. And not just any novel, The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.

It's maybe the most famous revenge novel ever written. The novel is vast, more than a thousand pages. The hero, Edmund Dantes, escapes from his wrongful imprisonment. He becomes wildly rich and he destroys his enemies. It left you wondering if the vast novel of Nicolas Sarkozy's life might still have a few chapters left to be written.

It's March the 16th, 2026, and I'm back in court in Paris. And I'm watching Sarkozy arrive for his appeal trial.

He walks in a free man. He's been released from prison to fight the case. And everything is still to play for. Sarkozy's been pretty busy. He's written a book. It took him three weeks. A memoir about his 20 days in prison. And it became a number one bestseller. He went on a book tour. He opened up to a podcaster about finding God and discovering the power of prayer.

But now he's back in court and he could emerge from this retrial completely cleared or sentenced to 10 years behind bars. Nicholas Sarkozy's appeal will run until June and the verdict will come in the autumn. In the meantime, Danielle Klein is going to court almost every day and she says the last 35 years have been overwhelming.

Sticking at it has become Daniel's mission. We mustn't give up. We mustn't let go. We mustn't think that we're so small in the face of all this. And in spite of everything that's happened, Nicolas Sarkozy still has supporters in the very highest places. With retrospect, does any of this change how you feel about his presidency? No. This is Christine Lagarde.