A French appeals court reduced Sarkozy's sentence

The Court of Appeal in Paris sentenced Nicolas Sarkozy to one year of imprisonment, of which six months were suspended, under the so-called "Bigmalion" affair related to excessive spending during his lost presidential campaign in 2012, AFP reported.
The fixed part of the sentence imposed on the former president (2007-2012) will be adjusted, the president of the court said as she read her decision.
In September 2021, the Paris Criminal Court found Sarkozy guilty of significantly exceeding the legal spending limit and sentenced him to one year in prison for illegally financing his campaign.
However, the court requested that this sentence be replaced directly with house arrest under electronic monitoring.
13 other individuals were also sentenced to imprisonment for up to three and a half years, some of which were suspended.
Nicolas Sarkozy and 9 others appealed and were retried from 8 November to 7 December.
Investigations into this case revealed that in order to cover up the sharp increase in his campaign expenses - almost 43 million euros against the maximum allowed amount of 22.5 million euros - a system of double invoicing was put in place, under the guise of fictitious contracts a large part of the expenses for the meetings were charged to Nicolas Sarkozy's political party.
Unlike his co-defendants, the former head of state is not involved in this false invoicing scheme.
As during the first trial, Nicolas Sarkozy "vigorously denies any criminal responsibility", condemning the "lies".
His lawyer, Vincent Derry, pleaded for his acquittal, insisting that the former head of state "never knew" that the legal ceiling on election expenses had been exceeded and "never made any expenses".
He believed it was "impossible" for the prosecutor to "prove the intentional element" or the "material element" of the alleged crime. /BGNES