A extremely rare sanction for a former president: Nicolas Sarkozy was excluded from the Legion of Honor after his conviction, which became final, at one year in prison for corruption in the listening case, according to a decree published on Sunday in the Official Journal. “Nicolas Sarkozy takes note of the decision taken by the Grand Chancellor. He has never made this question a personal affair,” said Patrice Spinosi, stressing that if the former head of state “argued legal arguments, it was in the name of the very function of President of the Republic”. The ex-president (2007-2012) recalled that his appeal in front of the ECHR “is still during”. He had deposited him after his conviction which became final in December, at one year in prison for corruption in the listening case.
“The condemnation of France (by the ECHR) will imply the revision of the criminal conviction pronounced against (by Nicolas Sarkozy) at the same time as the exclusion of the order of the Legion of Honor, one being only the consequence of the other,” assured Patrice Spinosi.
Nicolas Sarkozy, also excluded from the National Order of Merit, thus became the second French head of the State deprived of this distinction after Marshal Pétain, to whom the Legion of Honor had been withdrawn after his conviction in August 1945 for high betrayal and intelligence with the enemy. “This link with Marshal Pétain is unworthy”, has prevailed by government spokesperson Sophie Primas (LR), also taking “act” of this automatic decision which is part of the Legion of Honor Code “. “President Sarkozy was there for France at extremely complicated moments,” she said, saying to herself “a little reserved not on the rule, but on what she trains as a comparison”.
A heavy condemnation of symbol
“It is a rule, but it is also a shame,” deplored on Franceinfo the new secretary general of LR, Othman Nasrou, close to Bruno Retailleau, providing his support and respect to the ex-president. On the left, the environmental deputy Benjamin Lucas welcomed the decision, calling on X to that “the Republic deprives its privileges and its institutional influence that which dishonored its function and betrayed the sacred oath which links the people to its elected officials, that of probity”.
This heavy symbol decision was expected since the conviction of Nicolas Sarkozy in the listening case was made final by the rejection of an appeal by the Court of Cassation in December. In this file, the former head of the State was found guilty of having, in 2014, tried to corrupt a magistrate of the Court of Cassation, Gilbert Azibert, in the hope of obtaining confidential information and with the help of his lawyer Me Thierry Herzog. All three were sentenced, at first instance and on appeal, to the same sentence of three years in prison including a farm.