Paris (AFP)

Opened Monday in a media ferment, this unprecedented trial was immediately suspended.

At issue: the state of health of the former senior magistrate Gilbert Azibert, 73, and his absence, in the context of the Covid-19 epidemic.

His lawyer requested the adjournment of the hearing and, before deciding, the president of the 32nd correctional chamber of Paris, Christine Mée, ordered a medical expertise, the conclusions of which are expected Thursday morning.

Depending on the results, the court will say at the resumption, at 1:30 p.m., if the trial can continue without the defendant at the bar, if he can appear by videoconference - an option that the defense opposed en bloc - or if the The hearing must be postponed to a later date.

This trial, which is to last three weeks, is unprecedented: never has a former head of state been tried for corruption under the Fifth Republic.

Before Nicolas Sarkozy, only one former president, Jacques Chirac, was tried and convicted in 2011 in the case of fictitious jobs of the City of Paris, but without ever having appeared before his judges, due to his state of health.

Nicolas Sarkozy, 65, was present on Monday.

He had denounced before the opening of the trial a "scandal which will remain in the annals" and assured that he would "face (his) obligations" by explaining himself in court.

In this case, also called "Bismuth", he is suspected of having, with his lawyer Thierry Herzog, tried to bribe Gilbert Azibert, then in post at the Court of Cassation.

According to the prosecution, the former head of state was seeking to obtain information covered by secrecy, or even to influence, a procedure initiated before the high court in the Bettencourt case for which he obtained a dismissal. 2013.

In return, he would have considered bringing a "boost" to Gilbert Azibert for a prestigious position in Monaco that he coveted but never obtained.

- unofficial line -

The beginnings of this affair are in another legal file which concerns Nicolas Sarkozy: the suspicions of Libyan financing of his presidential campaign of 2007 which earned him a quadruple indictment.

A wiretapping in this file had revealed the existence of a secret line between the former president and his lawyer, opened under the name of "Paul Bismuth" - in reality a high school acquaintance of Me Herzog, whose constitution of Civil party was announced Monday but then denied.

The conversations intercepted on this unofficial line constitute the basis of the accusation.

For the defense, they are illegal because they infringe the secrecy of exchanges between a lawyer and his client.

This question, decided against the Sarkozy camp by the Court of Cassation in 2016, should again be vigorously debated.

In these flowery conversations, the former president pledged to intervene in favor of Gilbert Azibert.

"Me, I make him go up", "I will help him", he said in particular to Me Herzog.

A few days later, he declares that he has given up any "approach" to the Monegasque authorities.

For investigators, the sudden turnaround could come from the discovery by the two men that their unofficial phones were tapped.

"Little bits of sentence taken from a context", "conversations between very long-standing friends", swept one of Thierry Herzog's lawyers, Me Paul-Albert Iweins, on Monday.

Withdrawn from politics since his defeat in the right-wing primary at the end of 2016 but still very influential at Les Républicains, Nicolas Sarkozy faces ten years in prison and a million euros fine for corruption and influence peddling, like his co-convicts judged in addition for violation of professional secrecy.

All are contesting some "corruption pact".

Whatever the outcome Thursday, another judicial appointment awaits Nicolas Sarkozy in the spring: the trial of the Bygmalion affair on his campaign expenses for the presidential election of 2012.

© 2020 AFP