More than a hundred people gathered this Tuesday, October 21, in front of Nicolas Sarkozy’s house in the 16th district. This concentration, at the initiative of the three children of the former head of state, aimed to show their support for the former president who must enter the Health prison to serve his prison sentence.
“I am very proud of him, I am proud that we have the same surname. I am proud that he goes to prison with his head held high and I am totally convinced of his innocence,” his brother Guillaume Sarkozy reacted on BFMTV.
“Enormous sadness” for Henri Guaino
His former advisor, Henri Guaino, said he felt “enormous sadness, great pain, shame for my country and anguish.” Whoever announced his presence at this event was very moved. “I am ashamed of my country when human justice is so far from the ideal of justice,” he added.
The LR senator from Paris, Agnès Evren, explained that she had come to “show [son] love” to Nicolas Sarkozy after being shocked by his conviction.
“I experienced it as a kind of international and national humiliation, and it affected me a lot because seeing a very respected, highly appreciated former president, sleeping in a cell, mixed with thugs, is a deeply damaged image of France that shakes the conscience,” he declared on BFMTV. “I dare to hope that he remains in prison for as little time as possible and that he returns to us very soon.”
MEP and former Secretary of State Nadine Morano expressed confidence in Nicolas Sarkozy’s ability to take advantage of the situation. “I know his strength, he will resist, I told him ‘they will make you a hero and a romantic character’, he will become a legend, but he will fight and write, he will make a bestseller and as soon as he has written it I will invite him to come and do a signing in our apartment.”
Anonymous support
Among the anonymous ones, Jérôme, arrived early to participate in the gathering. “It is support for our president, who has been involved in political life for 50 years. This imprisonment seems surprising, curious, we could imprison a former president, I am not sure, I find it quite shocking, quite disturbing,” he lamented before denouncing “the ruthlessness.”
Martial, who calls himself a “Sarkozyist from the beginning”, wanted to be present this Tuesday morning in front of the house of the former head of state. “What a shame for a former president of the Republic. There is anger, he was a president who tried to make things happen, they prevented it and now we see the result. For me it is unthinkable,” he shares.
Bruno, a janitor who works next to Nicolas Sarkozy’s property, discovered the demonstration. He does not participate but shows his sympathy for the former head of state. “Frankly, it hurts. He may have done stupid things, but there are a lot of people who do stupid things and don’t go to prison. I don’t think he’s going to stay long.”
Nicolas Sarkozy was sentenced to five years in prison for “criminal conspiracy” on September 25. already condemned In other cases, the former President of the Republic was found guilty of criminal association in the case of Libyan financing of his 2007 electoral campaign.
At the end of three months of the process, at the end of March, representatives of the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) demanded seven years in prison against Nicolas Sarkozy, accusing him of having signed a “Faustian pact of corruption with one of the most untouchable dictators of the last 30 years.”
Source: BFM TV
