Sarkozy, Ex France president, sentenced to one year in prison for illegal election financing

The former French president was sentenced for illegal campaign financing of his 2012 re-election campaign. 

He was not in court to hear the verdict as he was not allowed to monitor his campaign spending. 

At his five-week trial in May and June, the prosecution had portrayed him as having a "cavalier" attitude to the public money available to candidates during campaigning and said he ignored warnings from his accountants about the ballooning costs. 

Sarkozy received a three-year jail for corruption and influence peddling at that trial, two years of which were suspended. 

The case failed to garner much interest among the public, with the charges seen as less sensational than the corruption charges that had already dented any prospect of Sarkozy making another comeback. 

Before Sarkozy, the only French leader to be sentenced at trial was his predecessor Jacques Chirac, who received a two-year suspended sentence in 2011 for corruption over a fake jobs scandal relating to his time as Paris mayor.