Sarkozy campaign funding trial moves closer

PARIS AFP Dec15, 2016   
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy moved closer to facing trial over a campaign funding scandal on Thursday when a bid to halt proceedings against one of the suspects in the case was rejected.   

The Paris appeal court threw out the request by the defence concerning the director of Sarkozy’s unsuccessful 2012 re-election campaign, Guillaume Lambert, who is one of 14 people in the prosecution’s sights.   

Lawyers said the attempt to have the case against Lambert dropped was probably the last obstacle to the case going to trial, providing investigating magistrates follow prosecutors’ requests to proceed. In the most sensational case against him, Sarkozy was cleared in October 2013 of accepting campaign donations in 2007 from France’s richest woman, L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, when she was too frail to know what she was doing.