Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 561 posts

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#21

Post by mytailorisrich »

kergonath wrote: post #19
mytailorisrich wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He should not be in jail now. His case is going to appeal but the court decided to still jail him now "provisionally" (exécution provisoire), which sounds like a political play. Coincidentally, the same is happening to Le Pen with respect to the decision to ban her from elections... As for "delaying" the case, this is just the French court system for you. Everything takes years and years.

> His case is going to appeal but the court decided to still jail him now "provisionally" (exécution provisoire), which sounds like a political play. No. That’s how it’s done, and he can thank himself because he introduced the process himself. It’s utterly disgusting to hear him bloviating about criminals in 2007 and now whining because he’s on the receiving end. Shameless. The law is the law. He’s been convicted eno…

[flagged]

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#22

Post by orwin »

aaplok wrote: post #14
mytailorisrich wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He should not be in jail now. His case is going to appeal but the court decided to still jail him now "provisionally" (exécution provisoire), which sounds like a political play. Coincidentally, the same is happening to Le Pen with respect to the decision to ban her from elections... As for "delaying" the case, this is just the French court system for you. Everything takes years and years.

It is not political play. This is FUD spread by his political supporters. The "exécution provisoire" is a measure that was introduced when his own party was in power, to make sure that terrorists were jailed immediately. He happened to be condemned for breaching the same law (association de malfaiteurs) that is used against terrorists. I once read a comment by a lawyer that he was amazed by the number of politicians…

Exactly, and he he is also judged in a separate case to have heavily leaned on a witness, and in another separate case for bribing a judge.

At one point when you're this corrupt, putting you away is the only solution.

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#24

Post by jimbob45 »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #13
littlestymaar wrote: post #8

For context, it's not even the first time he's condemned, but this time the crime was sever enough so he couldn't avoid prison. He delayed the case enough (almost 13 years) so that he's now more than 70 though and I doubt he stays to long in prison because of his age. But it's nice to see that he couldn't run away from justice forever and is finally in jail.

He should not be in jail now. His case is going to appeal but the court decided to still jail him now "provisionally" (exécution provisoire), which sounds like a political play. Coincidentally, the same is happening to Le Pen with respect to the decision to ban her from elections... As for "delaying" the case, this is just the French court system for you. Everything takes years and years.

As for "delaying" the case, this is just the French court system for you. Everything takes years and years.

Is there a country for which that doesn't hold true?

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#25

Post by byroot »

moralestapia wrote: post #10
rapsey wrote: post #2

So he used money from Libya to get elected and then later he bombed them?

I'll have to read more into this, but it says he just "conspired" to do it, whatever that means. The solitary confinement part is quite harsh, I've never understood how that is supposed to rehabilitate someone. In France there's early release, parole, etc. so real time he spends behind bars might be as low as two years. Edit: The WP article is actually a very interesting read, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libyan_fin…

> I'll have to read more into this, but it says he just "conspired" to do it, whatever that means.

The court couldn't prove beyond reasonable doubt that the money was used for his campaign.

However they were able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that he knew what his subordinates were planing and that he did nothing to stop it.

In France conspiring to commit a crime is punishable, regardless of whether the crime actually happened or not. That's a law that has been crafted by Sarkozy's own party.

> The solitary confinement part is quite harsh

The solitary part isn't a punishment, but to ensure his safety. They even went as far as to allocated another cell for the two full time police officers of his security detail...

Also the upside is that he has a cell for himself, something a lot of prisoners would love to have given the over prison occupancy in France is 137% (and up to 200% in some specific prisons).

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#26

Post by looobay »

qq66 wrote: post #23

So is this a criminal president receiving justice, or a politically motivated prosecution?

He received money from Libya for his presidential campaign [0], he's just a criminal ex-president...

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libyan_financing_in_the_2007_F...

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#27

Post by alex_duf »

qq66 wrote: post #23

So is this a criminal president receiving justice, or a politically motivated prosecution?

The former, a tribunal has proven there was an illegal collusion between him and Muammar Gaddafi, in order to finance his presidential campaign.

There's been bags of cash that transited by private airplanes, terrorist acts in reprisal, and ultimately a probable demise of Gaddafi's regime in response.

Some real dirty actions with lots of lives lost.

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#28

Post by 0xAFFFF »

dmead wrote: post #3

The French understand how to run a society.

Well no. French person here. While this verdict is a great victory for democracy in itself, a lot of problems around it are still not solved.

- Prosecuting white-collar crime still takes ages and takes over a decade, long after the resulting sentences have a real impact

- People like Nicolas Sarkozy have powerful media relays (most of the TV/newspaper owners in France are friends of him or at least sympathetic) and they can smear the judgment, smear the judges in the media with impunity

- His allies are currently in power, he was invited for a short discussion by president Macron and got a visit in prison from the minister of justice Darmanin, which reeks of favoritism

So the road ahead is still long, and I'm not even talking about current political climate which is horrendous.

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#29

Post by kergonath »

moralestapia wrote: post #10
rapsey wrote: post #2

So he used money from Libya to get elected and then later he bombed them?

I'll have to read more into this, but it says he just "conspired" to do it, whatever that means. The solitary confinement part is quite harsh, I've never understood how that is supposed to rehabilitate someone. In France there's early release, parole, etc. so real time he spends behind bars might be as low as two years. Edit: The WP article is actually a very interesting read, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libyan_fin…

> The solitary confinement part is quite harsh, I've never understood how that is supposed to rehabilitate someone.

It’s for security reasons. It’s also why he’s got bodyguards.

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#30

Post by alex_duf »

forgotoldacc wrote: post #9
rapsey wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Politically deadlocked, failing economy, with the judiciary doing political dirty work?

Seventh biggest economy with the 21st biggest population seems like an economy that punches above its weight. Plus a low GINI coefficient suggests there's less wealth divide than a lot of other places. Seems like they have a mature economy and don't need to grow forever like a tumor. Once you reach a certain point, optimizing for quality of life seems nice, and the French do seem to aim for that.

I think unfortunately both can be true at the same time, politically deadlock AND punching above its weight.

There's a lot to fix in France, and a lot of things going well.

Post reply on HN