Explanation

Nicolas Sarkozy was guilty of corruption and influence-peddling and sentenced to three years in prison, two of them suspended.

 France’s president from 2007 to 2012 had played an “active role” in forging a “corruption pact” with his lawyer and a senior magistrate to obtain information on a separate investigation into political donations, the leading judge declared, and there was “serious and concurring evidence” of collaboration between the three men to break the law.