He has no plans to resign despite his prison sentence in the Libya affair. Nicolas Sarkozy will remain a director of Lagardère and Accor during his incarceration, we learned from the two groups on Friday, confirming information from BFM Business.
The former President of the Republic, incarcerated from October 21 at the Santé prison in Paris, was present on Thursday at the Lagardère board of directors and will remain a member, the group confirmed to AFP.
The group, in the fold of conservative billionaire Vincent Bolloré, is built on two main branches: publishing (Hachette Livre in particular) and its commercial activity in train stations and airports (Relay, Aelia Duty Free, etc.). It also owns several media outlets (JDD, Europe 1, Elle International) as well as concert and sports halls.
Authorized to operate a private business
Contacted, the Accor hotel group confirmed “that he was a member of the board of directors”, without further comment. Accor will present its quarterly results to members of its board of directors on Thursday October 23. Its members will have to validate the accounts, as recalled by BFM Business, which specifies that Nicolas Sarkozy will entrust his power to the group’s CEO, Sébastien Bazin.
Also a director at LOV Group, Nicolas Sarkozy “will continue to serve”, indicated the company’s communication. The group, created in 2008 by French entrepreneur Stéphane Courbit, is particularly present in audiovisual production (Banijay), online sports betting (Betclic), hotels and luxury gastronomy (Les Airelles, Ladurée).
Sarkozy’s sentence includes ineligibility and a ban on all public employment for five years, but not a ban on running a private business.
On September 25, the Paris criminal court declared the former head of state guilty of criminal conspiracy for having let his closest collaborators approach Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya with a view to illegally financing his victorious 2007 presidential campaign. It sentenced him to five years in prison.
Although he appealed the judgment, Nicolas Sarkozy, 70 years old, will be imprisoned due to the deferred committal warrant with provisional execution issued against him. A measure that the court justified by the “exceptional seriousness of the facts”, committed by a political leader then aspiring to the supreme office of the Republic.