
-
13 million displaced as Sudan war enters third year: UN
-
Dhoni snaps Chennai's five-match IPL losing streak
-
Meta to train AI models on European users' public data
-
Mexican president opposes ban on songs glorifying drug cartels
-
Trump blames Zelensky for 'millions' of deaths in Russian invasion
-
French prosecutor investigates as man confesses to throwing bottle at Van der Poel
-
UN warns over Gaza humanitarian crisis as France, Abbas call for truce
-
PSG's Desire Doue: Talented by name and by nature
-
Death toll from Dominican nightclub disaster rises to 231: minister
-
Phoenix Suns fire Budenholzer after missing playoffs
-
El Salvador's Bukele rules out returning migrant, in love-fest with Trump
-
Goldman Sachs profits rise on strong equity trading results
-
Zverev shakes off recent funk to beat Muller in Munich
-
Flick expects Barcelona's 'best' against Dortmund despite first-leg lead
-
'West Philippine Sea' now visible on Google Maps without specific search
-
Hungarian lawmakers back constitutional curbs on LGBTQ people, dual nationals
-
Nvidia to build supercomputer chips entirely in US for first time
-
Argentine peso depreciates after exchange controls lifted
-
Macron, Abbas call for Gaza truce as Hamas insists on guarantees
-
Kim Kardashian will testify at Paris jewellery theft trial: lawyer
-
Alcaraz hits back at critics before Barcelona Open
-
Hungarian lawmakers back curbs on LGBTQ people, dual nationals
-
Trump hosts 'coolest dictator' Bukele in migrant crackdown talks
-
Macron urges 'reform' of Palestinian Authority to run Gaza without Hamas
-
Trump's tariff exemptions give markets relief, but tensions loom
-
African players in Europe: Wissa deals blow to Arsenal
-
Stocks rise on new tariff twist
-
Emery says home fans can inspire Aston Villa comeback against PSG
-
'Miracles happen', says Kovac before uphill Barca battle
-
Russia says deadly Sumy strike hit army meeting
-
Pope recognises 'God's architect' Gaudi as 'venerable'
-
China, Vietnam sign agreements after Xi warns protectionism 'leads nowhere'
-
Italy's Olympic hope Brignone says 'four to five months' before back on skis
-
Flick has Barcelona on cusp of Champions League semis, six years on
-
Liverpool set for 'big summer' of transfers, says Van Dijk
-
Tensions flare as Algeria expels 12 French officials
-
Winter Olympics torch unveiled in joint ceremony in Milan and Osaka
-
French hospital staff, relatives sue ministers over work-related suicides
-
Music, revolution and Y2K: Coachella 2025 takeaways
-
Trump says no one 'off the hook' on tariffs but markets rise
-
Post Malone wraps Coachella with genre-fluid performance
-
Flawless Oscar, Max flounders: Bahrain Grand Prix talking points
-
UK govt races against time to keep steel furnaces running
-
Meta faces landmark US antitrust trial
-
Helicopter company that ran deadly New York tour shuts down
-
Hungary set to restrict constitutional rights in 'Easter cleanup'
-
Post Malone primed to close out Coachella
-
Katy Perry set to roar into space on all-female flight
-
Xi warns protectionism 'leads nowhere' as he arrives in Vietnam
-
Trump hosts El Salvador's Bukele, key ally in anti-migrant push

Sarkozy: divisive French ex-president beset by legal woes
Nicolas Sarkozy, who ruled France as a tough-talking right-wing president from 2007 to 2012, is seen by supporters as a dynamic saviour of his country but by detractors as a vulgar populist mired in corruption.
The pugnacious politician on Monday goes on trial on charges he used illegal campaign financing from Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi to fund his victorious 2007 presidential election campaign, accusations he vehemently denies.
The trial is just the latest legal headache for Sarkozy who in December was definitively condemned by France on influence-peddling charges after his final appeal was rejected by the Court of Cassation.
He was sentenced to one year in prison, the first time a former French head of state has been given such a sanction, although he is due to serve the time wearing an electronic bracelet outside of jail.
Defiant as ever, Sarkozy said he was "not ready to accept the profound injustice that is being done to me" and added he would use to the sole remaining legal path -- the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg -- to prove his innocence.
Last year, a Paris appeals court confirmed a conviction against Sarkozy in another illegal campaign financing case, ruling said he should serve six months prison, with another six months suspended. That verdict can still go to a higher appeals court.
- Macron meetings -
The series of legal woes have left the formerly omnipresent "hyper-president", who now regularly seeks to bend the ear of incumbent Emmanuel Macron, more than ever a behind-the-scenes political player far from the limelight where he once basked.
Sources have told AFP that Sarkozy held talks at the Elysee Palace late last year in a bid to persuade Macron not to appoint veteran centrist Francois Bayrou as prime minister. Sarkozy is widely known to despise Bayrou.
After a long hesitation, Macron went ahead and named Bayrou.
During his own five-year term, Sarkozy, now 69, took a hard line on immigration, security and national identity.
After winning the presidency at age 52, he was initially seen as injecting a much-needed dose of dynamism, making a splash on the international scene and wooing the corporate world.
But Sarkozy's presidency was overshadowed by the 2008 financial crisis, and he left office with the lowest popularity ratings of any postwar French leader up to then.
Sarkozy failed to win a second mandate in 2012 in a run-off against Socialist Francois Hollande, a bruising defeat over which he remains embittered more than a decade on.
- 'Special link' -
The 2012 defeat made Sarkozy the first president since Valery Giscard d'Estaing (1974-1981) to be denied a second term, prompting him to famously promise: "You won't hear about me anymore."
But that prediction turned out to be anything but true, with ongoing legal problems and his marriage to former supermodel Carla Bruni keeping Sarkozy in the spotlight.
Few were surprised when he returned to frontline politics, in 2014 winning the leadership of the conservative UMP party, since renamed The Republicans. But he failed to win the party's nomination for another crack at the presidency in 2017.
He has remained hugely popular on the right and lines of fans queued in the summer of 2020 to have him sign his memoir, "The Time of Storms", which topped best-seller lists for weeks.
"I have a special link with the French. It may stretch, it may tighten, but it exists," he said.
Key figures in Macron's increasingly right-leaning government, such as Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin, are former Sarkozy allies.
But Sarkozy is tainted by a number of unwanted firsts: while former French president and his mentor Jacques Chirac was also convicted of graft, Sarkozy is the first French former head of state to be convicted twice and the first to be formally given jail terms.
- 'Get lost' -
Born on January 28, 1955, the football fanatic and cycling enthusiast is an atypical French politician.
The son of a Hungarian immigrant father, Sarkozy has a law degree but unlike most of his peers did not attend the exclusive Ecole Nationale d'Administration, the well-worn production line for future French leaders.
Sarkozy has a pugnacious style seen as an asset by admirers but a liability by detractors who fault his apparent lack of self-control.
Few have forgotten his visit to the 2008 agriculture show in Paris, when he said "get lost, dumbass" to a man who refused to shake his hand.
But admirers are gladdened by his ability to show defiance even in crisis.
"I've got used to enduring this harassment over the past 10 years," he said.
M.A.Vaz--PC