Presidential scandals and corruption in France

Last updated: 27 January 2025 Views: 334
Presidential scandals and corruption in France

The complicated world of French politics is in the spotlight at the moment due to former president Nicolas Sarkozy going on trial for allegedly accepting illegal campaign financing from the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Alongside twelve other suspects, including former close aides, Sarkozy (pictured) has been charged with devising a pact with Gaddafi to fund his 2007 winning presidential campaign. However, this is not Sarkozy’s first rodeo with the French law courts, and if you look at the list of previous French presidents and ministers who have also fallen foul of the law, it seems the French, despite their love of rules and regulations, are just as fallible as other nationalities when power goes to their heads.

Luckily, it seems that another trait of the French is a love of justice which has meant that even the heads of state are not above being investigated and prosecuted by the French justice system. So to assuage our human need to watch the mighty fall, here’s a roundup of some of the biggest scandals to hit French politics in the last fifty years and how the French system (and the French newspapers) brought the scandals to light.

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing – President of France 1974 - 1981

Giscard d'Estaing was involved in a scandal called "l'affaire des diamants" (the diamonds affair) which happened when he was the French Minister of Finance. According to reports by the newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné, he was allegedly offered two diamonds from the President of the Central African Republic, Jean-Bédel Bokassa.

Giscard d'Estaing refuted the accusations, saying he had sold the diamonds and donated the proceeds to the Central African Red Cross. However, the head of the local Red Cross society (who later lost her job) publicly denied the French president’s claims and the whole saga created a stain on his presidency which ultimately led to him losing his 1981 bid for re-election.

Jacques Chirac – President of France 1995 – 2007

In 2011, Chirac was found guilty and convicted for embezzlement and breach of trust in relation to 21 bogus jobs and a charge of illegal conflict of interest concerning seven jobs. The charges dated back to his time as mayor of Paris.

Although he did not attend the trial due to “memory lapses” and had pleaded not guilty to the charges, he was given a two-year suspended prison sentence for paying members of the Rally for the Republic (RPR) party for municipal jobs that did not exist.

Seven others were also found guilty including Jean de Gaulle, grandson of former French president Charles de Gaulle, who got a three-month suspended term and France's former Foreign Minister Alain Juppe who was given a 14-month suspended sentence.

François Mitterrand – President of France 1981 - 1995

From 1982 to 1986, François Mitterrand established an anti-terror unit involving wiretapping – an unusual move as it bypassed the police and judiciary channels. One of the scandals dubbed the "Irish of Vincennes" involved members of the unit being accused of planting weapons and explosives in a Vincennes apartment belonging to three Irish nationals who were then arrested on terrorism charges. More worryingly, it appeared that the unit, under illegal presidential orders, obtained wiretaps on many others including journalists and politicians who may have threatened to reveal elements of his private life (including the fact that he had an illegitimate daughter with his mistress Anne Pingeot, and his part in the Vichy regime during the war).

After more than 20 years of legal wrangling, the affair finally came to court in 2005 where it was revealed that Mitterrand was the principal instigator of the unit where over 3000 illegally obtained wire taps were carried out. Seven members of the President's anti-terrorist unit were convicted and Mitterrand was designated as the "inspirator and essentially the controller of the operation."

As a footnote to the private life he wished to keep secret, his wife Danielle allowed Mitterand’s mistress and 20- year-old illegitimate daughter, Mazarine, to attend his funeral when he died of cancer in 1996 aged 79 – an illness he had also kept secret throughout his presidency.

Nicolas Sarkozy – President of France 2007 – 2012

Sarkozy was previously in court in 2021 for the Bygmalion scandal which charged Sarkozy with diverting from his campaign funds to be spent on lavish events which he subsequently tried to cover up by hiring a PR firm. Sarkozy was convicted for violating France's campaign finance spending limit law (he spent at least €42.8 million on his second-round presidential campaign, almost double the legal limit) and was given a one-year prison sentence which he opted to serve at home with an electronic tag.

During his current 2025 trial involving Gaddafi, he is pleading not guilty and has said in open court: "You will never ever find a single euro, a single Libyan cent in my campaign…I have always assumed my responsibilities and I intend to do so during these four months of hearings."

Watch this space….

François Fillon – Prime Minister of France 2007 - 2012

In 2020, French ex-Prime Minister François Fillon and his wife received jail sentences for corruption including misuse of public funds, embezzlement, aggravated fraud, forgery, and falsification of records.

The politician – who was the presidential candidate in 2017 but was forced out when the allegations came to light - was found guilty of paying his wife Penelope Fillon €1.156m for work she never carried out as a parliamentary aide.

After an appeal, Fillon's prison sentence was shortened to four years with three years suspended and his wife got a two-year suspended prison sentence with fines of €375,000 for each of them.

François Hollande – President of France 2012 – 2017

Presidential scandals and corruption in France hollandeNicknamed Flamby by his detractors for his flabby appearance (the brand name of a French crème caramel dessert) Hollande seems to have kept his nose clean in terms of criminal convictions and corruption, however he did get into hot water when in 2014 he was photographed using the secret service to aid his sex trysts with actress Julie Gayet, 20 years his junior. This included a late-night drive on the back of a moped driven by a secret service employee who would later deliver the couple breakfast croissants.

Despite the French supposed nonchalance regarding romantic affairs of their public figures and their insistence that politicians love lives should remain off-limits, the press had a field day when it was revealed that although he had split from his wife, fellow politician Ségolène Royal, in 2007, this relationship had overlapped with another he was having with journalist Valérie Trierweiler. After seeing the reports in the press of Hollande’s affair with Gayet, Trierweiler had to be hospitalised for emotional exhaustion.

Although Hollande later went onto marry Gayet in 2022, he didn’t come off completely unstained after Trierweiler released a memoir called “Thank you for this moment” which went into salacious detail about their affair but also revealed that despite being a socialist and championing the under-privileged, Hollande was alleged to have retained snobbish views regarding the poor which dented his popularity. Unusually he did not run for a second term and was replaced when the centrist Emmanuel Macron was voted in during the 2017 election.

So there you have it….no one seems to escape the scrutiny of the French courts or the press forever, and if you’re interested in more political and business news in France and Europe, take a look at our blog articles you’ll find plenty to inspire and inform you.

Download our free guide on opening a business in France

Learn the ins and outs of company formation in one of the world’s biggest and most prestigious markets

Paris at night
Invalid Input
Invalid Input
Invalid Input
Invalid Input

Download our free guide on opening a business in Ireland

Learn the ins and outs of company formation in one of the world's premier business destinations

Ireland

Invalid Input
Invalid Input
Invalid Input
Invalid Input

Download our free guide on opening a business in Europe

Learn the ins and outs of company formation in Europe

Europe
Invalid Input
Invalid Input
Invalid Input
Invalid Input

RELATED ARTICLES