Nicolas Sarkozy to Face Trial for Corruption and Influence Peddling

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has been sent to trial for corruption and influence peddling, The Guardian writes.
The case centres over phone calls Sarkozy allegedly made to a senior judge who was investigating claims that his 2007 presidential campaign was illegally funded.

Sarkozy is alleged to have promised the judge a comfortable promotion in return for information about the fraud inquiry.
The judge and Sarkozy's lawyer, Thierry Herzog, have also been ordered to stand trial on the same charges. All three have denied any wrongdoing; the former leader's lawyers announced he would appeal against the decision to send the case to court.

This new legal setback came days after Sarkozy was formally put under investigation over claims he took ?50m (£44m) from the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in illegal donations for his successful 2007 presidential campaign, which he also denied. He went on prime time television to as "crazy, monstrous".

In this latest case, Sarkozy is accused of contacting Gilbert Azibert, then a senior judge in France's highest court, the court of cassation, in 2014 - two years after he left office - in order to obtain information about an investigation being carried out about his 2007 campaign funding. In this instance, Sarkozy had been accused of taking envelopes of cash in illegal donations from the late Liliane Bettencourt, heiress to the L'Oréal fortune.

In the call to Azibert, in which Sarkozy used the alias Paul Bismuth, he allegedly offered to use his contacts to get the judge a prestigious job in the principality of Monaco in exchange for information on the case. The call was wiretapped by police.

In earlier hearings, Sarkozy and his lawyers had...