Threatened with a “warrant to bring him in,” the former president of the Republic opposed a contemptuous silence to questions from the president of the 32ᵉ chamber of the Paris judicial court.
Nicolas Sarkozy had no choice. He therefore came, forced and obliged, to testify before the 32nd chamber of the criminal court of Paris which has been judging since October 18, 2021 five close collaborators of the former president in the polls affair. A ten year old affair.
300 polls for €9.4 million
At the beginning, a report of the Court of Auditors of 2009 which pinned the Elysee for a slew of surveys passed without tender. In February 2010, the anti-corruption association Anticor filed a first complaint for “favoritism” and “misappropriation of public funds”. It is about some 300 surveys between 2007 and 2012 for a total of € 9.4 million.
This first complaint was dismissed. Hence a second complaint with civil action in 2011. Judge Serge Tournaire then considered that this complaint should succeed. But the prosecutor’s office appealed and the court of appeal considered that the immunity enjoyed by the President of the Republic should be extended to his close collaborators.
Anticor goes to the Supreme Court. On December 19, 2012, the high court clarified that presidential immunity does not extend to the president’s collaborators and ordered a judicial investigation.
In November 2018, the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) requested that several people close to Nicolas Sarkozy: Patrick Buisson, Pierre Giacometti, Claude Guéant, Emmanuelle Mignon and Julien Vaulpré and four companies or polling institutes (Publifact, Publi-Opinion, Giacometti Peron and the Ipsos institute) be referred to the criminal court for the offence of favoritism, misappropriation of public funds and concealment of these offences.
A silent witness
Protected by his immunity, the former president knows that he cannot be prosecuted. But Anticor asks that he be questioned as a witness. Sarkozy was excused. However, the court considered that he was an important witness in this case and ordered him to appear on the stand, this Tuesday, November 2, 2021 at 1:30 p.m. under penalty of law enforcement.
The president asked the witness a series of questions. One of which was the very last one:
– “Claude Guéant claims to have acted on your instructions, this could be the case of Emmanuelle Mignon and Julien Vaulpré Is it true that these three people have only carried out your instructions?”.
Silence from the witness on the stand.
Nicolas Sarkozy had the choice between two attitudes. The first was to acknowledge that he had asked his collaborators to conduct the polls that he needed to feed his thinking and guide his political choices. By doing so, he would clear the five defendants who, as a result, would become mere accomplices in the offences of which they are accused.
The second was to remain silent. A silence that was contemptuous of the court, of justice and of his former collaborators at the Elysée.
This is the attitude that Nicolas Sarkozy has adopted. An attitude which, finally, resembles him well.