France’s ex-president Sarkozy escapes second ankle tag sentence

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy leaves his home Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025 in Paris as he heads to prison to serve time for a criminal conspiracy to finance his 2007 election campaign with funds from Libya.

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy will not serve time with an electronic ankle tag as punishment for illegal funding of his 2012 re-election bid, an informed source said Wednesday.

Sarkozy, 71, has faced a raft of accusations since leaving office after a single term from 2007 to 2012. He has denied all allegations in all cases.

Last year he became modern France’s first-ever president to go to jail, serving 20 days in a case related to alleged Libyan funding in his 2007 election campaign. His appeal trial in the case is ongoing.

He has also received two definitive convictions in other cases.

In one of them, the country’s top court last year upheld a six-month term in the so-called “Bygmalion” case, finding he had overspent on his failed 2012 re-election bid with a PR firm called Bygmalion and then attempted to cover it up.

It was not clear at the time if he would have to wear an ankle tag.

But a court on Tuesday decided Sarkozy would not have to wear the tracker due to his advanced age, the source with knowledge of the case told AFP, requesting anonymity.

In 2024, he had also exhausted his last legal recourse in the so-called “Bismuth” case over trying to extract favours from a judge a decade earlier.

The case was discovered when police, as part of the Libya investigation, wiretapped a secret phone line Sarkozy used under the alias Paul Bismuth to speak to his lawyer.

He served a sentence with an ankle tag that was removed in May last year after several months -- also due to his age.

A court in March had rejected his request to merge both sentences, and thereby avoid more time with an ankle tag.