Former France president, Nicolas Sarkozy, will face trial after the highest court in France has cleared the way for the case to proceed. The judgment in the case might hurt his chances of running in the election next year.
According to Daily Mail, Nicolas Sarkozy could be seen before the court for charges of corruption since the France's highest court have ruled that his appeal on incriminating the wiretaps between him and his lawyer were ruled admissible. The opposition leader is now under preliminary investigations for corruption and influence peddling based on the information gathered through wiretaps from 2013 - 2014. The wiretap case was initially focused on the 'illegal financing' in 2012 for his presidential campaign after being suspiciously suspected to receive money from Muammar Gaddafi. However, the prosecutors turned their case around after they've heard what the wiretap said.
The Guardian wrote that the tapped phones picked up conversations between Sarkozy and his contact with a magister, Gilbert Azibert. The conversation was about the confidential information of another investigations for the campaign donations from L'Oreal heiress, Lilianne Bettencourt. One of the main key points of the talk was that Sarkozy promised Azibert a promotion to high level position in Monaco for his cooperation. It was in May 2015 that the judges decided that Azibert and Sarkozy to proceed to trial but since then, they've sought that the wiretaps were illegally obtained.
Further, the case presented will definitely hurt his chances of becoming the country's next president. According to Independent, even if the former president will fight to delay the trial, the decision will weigh heavily on his hopes of winning the presidential primary due in November. Based on recent surveys, his chief rival, Alain Juppe, is bound to be the front runner for their party and will stand to be the center right position in the presidential election next April or May.
Nicolas Sarkozy has repeatedly denied all accusations and has argued that he's a victim of the political and judicial plotting. It is known that the former president has never been sent to trial or convicted of any wrong doing.
