Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy sentenced to year in prison for illegally financing election campaign

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was sentenced to one year in prison for illegally funding his reelection campaign.

Along with 13 other people, Sarkozy has been accused of having participated in the “Bygmalion” scandal, in which the former French president and his UMP party spent almost 22.5 million euros ($26.3 million) on rallies and events for his reelection campaign in 2012. After splurging nearly double France’s allowed spending limit for political parties, the party then tried to hide their spending by hiring a PR company called Bygmalion to send the invoices to the party and not to Sarkozy’s campaign.