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French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

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Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#101
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

French joke. He is jailed in a jail nicknamed "La Santé", which is also the the french cheers sentence. "À la votre *et la santé". Will be the running gag of this christmas and new year.

It's not a nickname. It's simply because the prison is located on Rue de la Santé (Health Street). Rue de la Santé was named that way because there was a hospital there from the 17th to the 19th century.

I hesitated to call it a nickname, as the name is "Paris-La Santé".

But got covered by Wikipédia "https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_de_la_Sant%C3%A9", so I did called it a nickname too.

I'm pretty sure it can be called a "Métonymie de lieu" but I just didn't want to insist about that, it feels a little pedantic.

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#102
What about Silvio Berlusconi? The Italian “premier”, multiple times prime minister, founder of multiple parties and leader of the right.

Owner of Milan FC and involved in constructing large parts of Milan city. Multiple people in his parties were condemned for corruption, the co-founder of his main party “Forza Italia” called Marcello Dell’Utri went in jail for concussion with Mafia. Berlusconi had a mafia boss - Vittorio Mangano - living permanently in his mansion near Milan. Owner of large construction companies, movie companies, a large bank, publishing companies, multiple newspapers, a lot of investments and three of the main TVs in Italy, and never went in jail a single day. He was able to create laws ad personam, like that the tree most important political positions in the country got immunity from law persecution, and he also was able to shorten the limitation period for crimes, in order to avoid charges.

He got sentenced or prosecuted for: fiscal fraud for his Mediaset TVs, underage prostitution, prostitution racket (some of the girls were appearing in TVs and got elected as politicians to get $$$ government pensions), mafia murders ‘92/93 (where Falcone e Borsellino died, the two judges that brought to international attention the danger of Italian Mafia), multiple accounting frauds, criminal appropriations, and corruption. He had few personal lawyers which the main one of them, Niccolò Ghedini, got elected in parliament.

When I read about Sarkozy or Trump, I think they’re just bad clones of Berlusconi. They read his manual. Congratulations to France to take politics and corruption more seriously then Italians.

P.S. Berlusconi was best friend with Putin and Gheddafi.

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#103
post #53
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Not only this, but he plotted to whitewash the terrorist responsible for a terror attack on a plane which killed more French people than the terror attacks of the Bataclan... this guy is despicable and merits to be behind bars

This was 36 years ago. He became president 18 years ago, and only now in prison. Justice sure takes its time. I used to live in the same street as this prison, it's only a 5 km walk to Elysée.

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#104
post #68

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.

I think speeding up trials and the judiciary in general would be a great benefit for many western democracies.

I think we can clear the backlog real quick if we use LLM-As-A-Judge =)

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, this made me find this wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_heads_of_state_and_gov...

Wild. Norman Saunders: Saunders was alleged by the US Drug Enforcement Administration to have accepted $30,000 from undercover agents to ensure safe passage of drugs by permitting safe stopover refuelling of drug flights from Colombia to the United States. Video evidence showed Saunders accepting $20,000 from an agent. Saunders was convicted in July 1985 of conspiracy, though he was acquitted of the charge of conspir…

Seems like he was arrested in the United States under US law for conspiracy to import drugs into the US. I can see why people in the Turks and Caicos Islands wouldn't really care about a guy being arrested for drug smuggling in a foreign country. I might well vote for a politician who spent years in a foreign country's prison for breaking that country's laws.

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#108
post #23

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

Sarkozy has been out of politics for a while and the current government is the closest in alignment to his politics, so it's hard to see the political gain here.

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#109
post #57
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

The "Red judge myth"is, well, a myth. And Fillon's case was very clear and he had all the reason to be prosecuted.

No it's not. A majority of judges belong the the "Syndicat de la Magistrature", a communist-leaning organization (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syndicat_de_la_magistrature) which even participates (despite the supposed "independance" it should abide by) to the Communist Party's annual conference ("Fete de l'Huma"). COMMUNIST, not "socialist". Furthermore, many organizations and known figures of the french magistrature have regularly explained how they view there job as having a political mission, particularly, "avoiding prison", etc, etc... rather than enforcing the law.

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#110

[flagged]

Law doesn't seek to punish but to rehabilitate. Act of taking freedom away from the criminal is violent enough. Treating them badly is just a sign of unfair/poor society that cannot maintain (afford to keep) it's promise to be civil to all citizens.
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