(Paris) Nicolas Sarkozy announced Saturday during a signing session for his new book “People Don’t Be Fooled by Nothing,” two days after he was sentenced to a year in prison for illegally financing his lost presidential campaign from 2012 in the Pygmalion file. .
The former head of state, who announced the appeal of this decision, arrived just before 11 am in a bookstore on the 16th.NS A neighborhood in Paris about 200 people were waiting for him and asking him to “hold on”, “courage” and “we are there”. Among them was the lawyer Francis Spener, the mayor of the sixteenthNS Circle.
Photo by Thomas Coix, Agence France-Presse
“He is very moving and at the same time very reassuring about the state of mind of the country, about the fact that people are not deceived by anything. […] They understood,” Mr Sarkozy commented in front of several television cameras at once, as he began to dedicate his book a picnic.
This was his first public expression since his conviction. In a message on social media Thursday, he denounced the “injustice” and promised to go “to the end” “to continue this absolutely necessary struggle for truth and justice.”
In response to a question on Saturday about Prime Minister Jean Castix, who showed him his “friendship” and “affection” on a “personal basis” on Thursday, the former President of the Republic (2007-2012) said: “It made me very happy, I’m not surprised by it, I am very sensitive to him, I have received thousands and thousands of messages of support. Also on behalf of Emmanuel Macron, a journalist asked? Mr. Sarkozy replied: “To his question, it is not for me to say that.”
Regarding his actual condemnation, he insisted: “What I think is anecdotal, and what people think is more serious. I am not necessarily the most objective” to comment.
In the queue, fifty-year-old Benoit Morris felt, “He was quick to accuse people. There are obvious excesses but from there we condemn them!”. For him, Nicolas Sarkozy is above all a “compass”. “He has gained a certain wisdom, an experience of strength. He has become a sage.”
A little later there was a group of four law students, two boys and two girls aged 17-20, because they “like so much” this “last big joke right”, that it makes them “a little nostalgic”.
“We want to take a picture with him because he is a former president, not the least,” explained one, Barthelemy, recalling that Mr. Sarkozy was “innocent since he appealed” his conviction.
In March, Nicolas Sarkozy became the first former president of VNS The Republic will be sentenced to prison – three years including one company – for corruption and abuse of influence, in another case known as “eavesdropping”.
He also appealed the verdict, thus suspending this sentence de facto.