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French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

bbc.com

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Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#41

Post by fraboniface »

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.

While "quality of life first" remains true in spirit for a lot of French people, this hasn't been supported politically since 2000 (when legal weekly work time was reduced to 35 hours - many people do more but they are compensated for it). And even that law was an exception. In truth, France has taken the neoliberal turn of the 80s almost as much as other countries, and growth and competitiveness has been the only mantra of governments for 40 years. We're mostly protected by laws passed before the 50s.

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#42

Post by lucasRW »

qq66 wrote: post #23

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

A bit of both, there's no doubt he's more than guilty.

But it is also clear that judges (who are notable left-leaning, if not far-left) are much more efficient at prosecuting right-wing figures (Fillon, for 0 reason this time).

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#44

Post by bee_rider »

0xAFFFF wrote: post #28
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 t…

Although, as you note, it could always be better… it is still impressive that your system seems to be overcoming 2 and 3.

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#45

Post by _ache_ »

alex_duf wrote: post #27
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.

And it's the second sentence for a illegal financing of his presidential campaign.

Formal proofs of this illegal financing have been linked to two of his closest collaborators but not him directly. He is so convicted for "association de malfaiteurs" wich mean "partnership with criminals / wrongdoers".

The illegal financing also explains what the US call the "Sarkozy war", which what a very odd move from France.

Note that, despite the formal proofs of the wrong doing, Sarkozy has the support of most major medias AND from the current president Macron which is not exactly the same party as Sarkozy (but close enough). That suggests politically motivated prosecution is very unlikely.

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#46

Post by inglor_cz »

dmead wrote: post #3

The French understand how to run a society.

The grass always looks greener at the other side, right?

I would say that when it comes to political dysfunction, France is a fairly bad case. The Gaullist semipresidential system was a mistake. IIRC only Erdogan copied it.

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#47

Post by kzrdude »

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.

I think you should say convicted instead of condemned. It's not really wrong, but condemned has many other connotations, which makes it less clear. It's not the first time he's convicted in court overall, but it's the first time for this charge.

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#48

Post by jakub_g »

In some ways, this reminds me of Bernard Tapie, called "a man with 1001 lives". It's a really interesting story from 1980s/90s of a self-made-businessman, turned politician, getting to the very top, doing deals with African leaders, becoming minister, having his football club (Marseille) win the European Champions League; which however was a turning point that started his downfall, as they bought a domestic game just before, to avoid injuries before the big final.

A very interesting documentary [2] explains all this. There's also Netflix series that I didn't watch though.

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

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_football_bribery_scanda...

[2] https://lcp.fr/programmes/les-mille-et-une-vies-de-bernard-t...

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#50

Post by inglor_cz »

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.

"optimizing for quality of life seems nice, and the French do seem to aim for that."

Looking at economic trends, it does seem like optimizing for quality of life of the boomer generation at the cost of the future generations, which is not so nice.

Without major cuts to its welfare state (which is Europe's most massive one as a percentage of GDP), France's finances are unsustainable. The necessary tax revenue just isn't there and you cannot borrow indefinitely to spend on entitlements.

As of current trends, if something explodes the Eurozone, it will be endless accumulation of French sovereign debt. It is the same as once Greece was, but ten times as big.

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