Nicolas Sarkozy loses his Legion of Honor after his conviction in the listening case – Liberation

He became the second former president, after Pétain, to undergo this extremely rare sanction. Nicolas Sarkozy was excluded from the Legion of Honor after his conviction, which has become final, to one year in prison for corruption In the listening case, according to a decree published this Sunday, June 15 in the Official Journal.

The ex-president (2007-2012), also excluded from the National Order of Merit, thus becomes the second head of the French State deprived of this distinction After Marshal Pétain, to whom the Legion of Honor was withdrawn after his conviction in August 1945 for high betrayal and intelligence with the enemy.

This decision was expected since the conviction of Nicolas Sarkozy was made final by the rejection of an appeal by the Court of Cassation in December.

In the listening case, the former head of the State was found guilty of having, in 2014, Attempted to corrupt a magistrate from the Court of Cassation, Gilbert Azibertin the hope of obtaining confidential information and with the help of his lawyer Me Thierry Herzog.

All three were sentenced, at first instance and on appeal, to the same sentence of three years in prison including a farm.

With the rejection of his final appeal in France, Nicolas Sarkozy was under an exclusion from the Legion of Honor which is automatic when a recipient is definitively condemned for a crime or received a prison sentence equal to or greater than a firm year.

In these cases, the withdrawal is « of law », had underlined in March the great Chancellor of the Legion of Honor, General François Lecointre, who signed the deprived of the deputy Nicolas Sarkozy of the two titles of which he was high-custard, the highest grade.

In recent weeks, the prospect of seeing the ex-deputy president of his legion of honor had caused recriminations on the right and aroused reserves at the highest peak of the state. « From my point of view, from where I am, I think it would not be a good decision »Emmanuel Macron said at the end of April on the sidelines of a trip to Madagascar.

By virtue of the decree signed on June 5, the two co -pastors of Nicolas Sarkozy, Gilbert Azibert and Thierry Herzog, are also excluded from the Legion of Honor and the National Order of Merit.

In addition to the listening, Nicolas Sarkozy is implicated in several judicial cases and notably appeared in early 2025 for suspicions of Libyan funding from his 2007 presidential campaign. The judgment in this file will be rendered in late September.