Does LR risk getting swallowed up by centre or losing themselves, clinging ever closer to far right?

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00:00Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has lost an appeal against his 2021 conviction

00:09for corruption and influence peddling.

00:12On Wednesday, France's highest court upheld the decision, which handed Sarkozy a three-year

00:18prison sentence.

00:19Now, two of those years were suspended, and Sarkozy would be allowed to wear an electronic

00:24monitoring bracelet instead of going to prison for the last year.

00:28The court's decision today means Sarkozy will have to wear the bracelet and will be

00:33ineligible to run for office for three years.

00:37Sarkozy is a conservative who remains an important figure in French politics.

00:41His lawyer says he will appeal the case to the European Court of Human Rights.

00:51Nicolas Sarkozy's appeal has just been rejected by the French Supreme Court, which we consider

00:56contrary to precedents set by the European Court of Human Rights.

01:00It's the first time in France that a person has been found guilty on the sole basis of

01:04intercepted communications with his lawyer.

01:07That being the case, Nicolas Sarkozy will, as he always said he would if he was not satisfied

01:13by the decision of French judges, appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

01:23For more on Sarkozy's case, let's cross live to Andrew Smith.

01:27He is a historian of modern France and a lecturer in liberal arts at Queen Mary University of

01:32London.

01:33Thank you so much for being here with us.

01:35I'd like to get just your reaction to the news of Sarkozy losing his appeal over these

01:40corruption charges.

01:42Was the verdict a surprise?

01:43Well, I think at this stage, it's not so much a surprise.

01:48It's all been about this technical ruling over whether or not this wiretapping evidence

01:56was admissible.

01:57Of course, this wiretapping evidence was all about essentially a cover up seemingly about

02:03another corruption scandal.

02:07What was going on is essentially between his lawyer and himself, there was a sort of discussion

02:12about whether or not they could try and find out some information and find out a little

02:15bit more about what was going on from a judge, from a senior magistrate.

02:21And the idea was that maybe if he could get a little bit of information, then he might

02:24get a sort of plumb post in Monaco as a sort of kickback.

02:29And so really, this is all about peddling influence and trying to kind of reward favor.

02:33But it was to do with investigating yet another corruption scandal, you know, this nested

02:40array of scandals that Sarkozy has kind of gotten himself into.

02:45So in that sense, I think it's not really a surprise.

02:48It is something which is, I guess, right.

02:52He's being punished for this corruption.

02:54It's a signal that that type of corruption isn't welcome in politics.

02:58And the hope is that, you know, it helps clean up what's going on in a wider basis in Paris.

03:05And Andrew, that intercepted communications with his lawyer.

03:08That's what his lawyer was saying is the basis for appealing to the European Court of Human

03:14Rights.

03:15Can you explain a little bit more why he can do this, how he can take this to the European

03:20court?

03:22The the argument is that, first of all, these are conversations between him and his lawyer

03:29and they should be confidential, they shouldn't be broadcast in this way as part of this.

03:34The idea is also that around when the wiretapping was happening, there was another parallel

03:42investigation about trying to flush out a mole, which was going on at the same time.

03:46And so it's an argument about the actual process through which these recordings were made and

03:50whether or not they are admissible evidence of this.

03:53And so what he's going to the European Court of Human Rights about to kind of appeal this

03:58further to the high court is around this idea of the conversation between him and his lawyer.

04:03For him, it was a sort of conversation.

04:05He was testing the ground.

04:06He was just speaking openly to a lawyer, not actually implicating himself.

04:12But of course, what the court has found is that this was evidence that there was wrongdoing

04:17going on.

04:18So it's all about this idea of whether or not a conversation with a lawyer can be listened

04:21into, whether or not that can implicate you in a wider system of corruption and whether

04:26or not that's admissible evidence in the court.

04:28And that's where the human rights element comes into here.

04:31What do you think that this decision could mean for Sarkozy's political future and the

04:37future of the right-wing Republican Party, which has been drastically weakened since

04:42Sarkozy was president, we should say?

04:44Yeah, absolutely.

04:45I mean, it's a bad day for Sarkozy, of course.

04:49We've got this appeal rejected for him.

04:53We know there is another corruption trial around campaign funding and the accusation

05:00of receiving Libyan funds as part of his presidential campaign, which will take place

05:06in January, just coming at the start of next year.

05:09That trial will open then.

05:10So of course, there is more to come for Sarkozy in this sort of, you know, kind of scandal

05:16hit presidency which he presided over.

05:19It's bad in the sense for him, he is inadmissible, he's ineligible in taking part in politics.

05:24Likewise, it's a bad day for him because, of course, Beirut, his longtime rival who

05:29we know he doesn't get on well with, is now in the post of prime minister.

05:35So his political family is not doing well.

05:37He personally is not doing well.

05:39And it really doesn't bode well for the Républicain.

05:42We know, of course, they split in the summer when you had Chioti try to kind of move towards

05:48the far right, L'Assemblée nationale, National Rally.

05:52We had a kind of a kind of stay, you know, stay true section, a kind of rump Republican

05:59party under Laurent Wauquiez, who tried to kind of stand true to this Republican arc.

06:04So there's a real challenge around what the future of it is.

06:07Does it get swallowed up by the center?

06:09And can it declare itself independent from Emmanuel Macron's majority?

06:14Or whether the kind of governing majority in that sense?

06:17Or do they cleave closer, ever closer to the far right?

06:20And do they lose themselves there?

06:21So it's a real challenge for that political family of the Republicans to articulate some

06:26difference and find themselves a role in this very difficult political moment in France.

06:32And for our viewers who maybe don't follow French politics as closely, have Sarkozy's

06:39legal troubles, have they made him a sort of political pariah?

06:43Are his supporters standing by him?

06:45I mean, he has been a very popular figure in France.

06:50Yeah, absolutely.

06:51So Sarkozy hasn't really been playing an active political role.

06:55He's been in the kind of the background, as it were, a sort of impresario, and it was

07:00often seen that the future of the Republicans sort of often lay in different political figures

07:06at the head of the Republican Party, sort of courting the influence of Sarkozy and courting

07:12his kind of, you know, advice and support.

07:15And we've even seen the kind of accusations that some like Emmanuel Macron are still interested

07:20in finding out the sort of opinions that people like Sarkozy have on current affairs.

07:24He seemed to be an influential figure who sort of revitalized the Republican Party and

07:30took it in a different direction.

07:31He's someone who is a charismatic figure as a former president.

07:35And it's really part of this, this lingering influence.

07:38So he hasn't been a frontline political player, but he's been a very influential player in

07:42the background of French politics and sort of, you know, really kind of moving the chess

07:47pieces on the board, we might say, for the centre right.

07:51Well, like you said, this is not his only legal trouble.

07:55He will be back in court next year.

07:57If you could, please, Andrew, stay with us, because I would like to now turn to the government

08:03formation drama going on here in Paris.

08:06French President Emmanuel Macron will once again host his prime minister, François Bayrou,

08:11on Wednesday afternoon at the Elysee Palace.

08:13The goal is to try to move forward on the cabinet in hopes of having a government formed soon.

08:19Bayrou has only been prime minister for mere days, and he has made a splash, but not for

08:24the reasons he would hope.

08:26So lawmakers are outraged right now at him because he attended a Mayotte crisis meeting

08:32online Monday, then spent the rest of his evening leading a town hall meeting in the

08:37southwestern city of Pau, where he is still mayor.

08:41And then yesterday, Tuesday, he faced lawmakers in Parliament.

08:44And let's just say they were not impressed by his performance.

08:47So, Andrew Smith, anyone tuning in, historian of modern France, you're still with us.

08:53It's no surprise that the new prime minister isn't getting the warmest welcome in Parliament.

08:58But what do you make of this anger over Bayrou going to Pau and attending a town hall meeting?

09:05Yeah, it's a real challenge.

09:08François Bayrou has tried to defend himself by saying he wants to, you know, you shouldn't

09:12have the regions of France disconnected from power in Paris.

09:16But, of course, he was, you know, part of the legislative that voted through the laws

09:24which separated this cumul des mandats, the accumulation of different posts, which essentially

09:30banned people from being kind of national political figures, from holding a national

09:34role like a deputy in the assembly or a cabinet member or so on, or prime minister for that

09:40case, with having a local kind of municipal role, such as the mayoralty of a town.

09:45And for years, decades in French history, that's always been the case.

09:49You know, frequently people held these posts as the mayor of a small town and then would

09:53also be a kind of national political figure at the same time.

09:57But since the passing of that law, of course, we've seen other prime ministers, Edouard

10:02Philippe, of course, in the Havre, Jean Castex, of course, also gave up his post as a mayor.

10:08And that was really, had become the trend, had become the accepted model.

10:12Now, François Bayrou wants to kind of move back on that, wants to say actually he wants

10:16to continue working in Pau.

10:18And, of course, he's been criticised because, as we heard, he phoned it in, literally joined

10:24by video call the crisis meeting.

10:27And of course, we see people like Yael Blanc-Prive from the central bloc, from Renaissance, from

10:33Macron's party, say, well, she'd much rather have seen him flying on a plane to Mayotte

10:38trying to engage in those crisis meetings and support what's going on there, rather

10:42than flying out to Pau and holding a minute's silence, not as prime minister, but instead

10:47as the mayor.

10:48That's a big challenge about judging where the kind of authority lies and where action

10:53can actually be taken.

10:54So there is a kind of slightly unusual point within this.

10:56And it really has been a very unwelcome scandal at the start of François Bayrou's prime ministerial

11:02term.

11:03And one final question for you, Emmanuel Macron and Bayrou, they're meeting again at the Elysee

11:08Palace.

11:09Can you just shine a little bit of light on their relationship for us?

11:14Have they historically been aligned politically?

11:17And what's their relationship like now that they're having to work together to try to

11:21dig us out of a crisis?

11:24Well, yeah, historically, they've worked very closely together.

11:27Of course, François Bayrou tried to do for many years as a longtime presidential candidate

11:32for Modem, for the centrists, what Emmanuel Macron did, you know, essentially take some

11:37from the right to the centre-left and the left to the centre-right, as it were, to form

11:43this centrist government.

11:44In 2017, it was the making of Emmanuel Macron's presidential run when François Bayrou endorsed

11:50him as a central candidate and actually supported him and joined his team.

11:55Of course, then he joined the government as a very short-running justice minister, stepping

12:00down a month later because he faced all sorts of difficulties around legal trouble around

12:10the funding of parliamentary assistance, which was dismissed at the moment, roughly the same

12:14thing that Marine Le Pen is being tried for at the minute as well.

12:18However, they've worked very closely together.

12:21Bayrou has often been a sort of independent figure.

12:23He refused to join the government under Gabriel Attal.

12:26And we've seen a couple of moments.

12:27We heard before he was invited to become prime minister, there were some stormy discussions

12:31which happened in which Bayrou demanded to be able not to be a sort of figurehead for

12:37a right-wing government, but have some authority.

12:39And there's been some discussion about whether or not he's been able to exercise that authority

12:43and claw back some separation of powers to put back some authority in the assembly, in

12:48the formation of this government.

12:50What he's trying to do is he's met, Bayrou has met representatives from right across

12:55the spectrum, except for the far left.

12:58He's not met from France Insoumise, but he's trying to piece together what he's calling

13:02a government of the personalities, uniting people from the left and the right.

13:07He's trying to assert that independence from Emmanuel Macron, and there's really some negotiation

13:12that's going to be going on.

13:13They've met twice already.

13:14They're going to meet again today.

13:15And we know that Emmanuel Macron will be flying out on Thursday to go to Mayotte as part of

13:20that crisis response.

13:21We know they want a government in place before Christmas.

13:25We have, of course, that emergency law, which is passing through the Senate just now, which

13:29will allow and prevent a government shutdown.

13:31But nonetheless, France needs a government.

13:34France needs to be represented in the assembly by a government which can actually enact policy,

13:39which can pass a proper budget.

13:42And that's what Bayrou is trying to do today.

13:43So let's see where these discussions go with Macron today.

13:47Can't say that enough.

13:48France needs a government.

13:50Andrew Smith, historian of modern France.

13:53Thank you so much for spending part of your day with us here on France 24.

13:55We always appreciate your great analysis.

13:58Thanks so much.

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