Paris (AFP)

In the aftermath of Nicolas Sarkozy's sentencing to prison, the right is concentrating its attacks on the National Financial Prosecutor's Office, one of its pet peeves, which it accuses of having played a political role in the trial.

"When some judges start to play politics, the role of the elected representatives of the people is to strongly denounce it", said Tuesday on LCI the number 2 of LR Guillaume Peltier, for whom "there is no more justice "when" the poison of politicization and partiality hangs over justice ".

Nicolas Sarkozy was sentenced Monday to three years in prison, including one for "corruption and influence peddling" in the so-called "tapping" affair, a decision he will appeal.

The Republicans had given their support to the former head of state, whom some dreamed of as an appeal for the presidential election of 2022, and who will be the guest of the 8 p.m. newspaper on Wednesday on TF1.

Tuesday, his supporters attacked the functioning of justice.

"I believed that in our country, we did not condemn without evidence, we condemn Nicolas Sarkozy on facts that do not exist", regretted on Radioclassique the deputy of Oise LR Eric Woerth, deploring the use of tapping between the former head of state and his lawyer in the trial.

"We have questions to ask ourselves about the way in which the rule of law works in France," MEP François Xavier Bellamy said on Public Senate.

But the attacks are focused on the National Financial Prosecutor's Office.

"A lot of things went wrong. The PNF was very skilful in his communication by instrumentalizing a fight which is a purely legal fight", declared the lawyer of Mr. Sarkozy, Me Jacqueline Laffont.

The national financial prosecutor Jean-François Bohnert swept aside these comments: "Political justice refers to other countries, other geographical spheres," he said on RTL.

- "At charge" -

An intervention little tasted at LR: "No, Mr. Bohnert, the decision rendered does not prove your independence, because you are not independent, you were chosen and appointed by the current President of the Republic", launched the deputy of Eure-et-Loir Olivier Marleix, for whom "the PNF has invited itself too loudly into the functioning of our democracy".

For the LR deputy of the North Pierre-Henri Dumont, the PNF "examines cases almost exclusively against right-wing personalities, while certain personalities close to power find themselves without a scheduled trial".

On the right, this sentence awakens bitter memories of 2017, when François Fillon was eliminated in the first round of the presidential election.

However, an investigation had been opened by the PNF a few months before in the case of the fictitious jobs of his wife Penelope, causing the campaign to explode.

"There will be a before and after this Sarkozy affair that I still strongly link to the Fillon affair," Senator LR Valérie Boyer said Tuesday evening.

"Without the PNF, I think Emmanuel Macron would not be President of the Republic," she added.

The PNF's investigations also led to the conviction of François Fillon to five years' imprisonment (the appeal trial will take place in November).

Shortly before the delivery of the judgment in June 2020, a controversy had erupted after statements by the former chief of the PNF Éliane Houlette, who was moved by the "very close control" exercised according to her by the general prosecutor's office in the conduct of the investigations in the Fillon folder.

The right was mounted to the niche, Nicolas Sarkozy evoking an "incredible accumulation of shortcomings and dysfunctions".

"I have the impression that this PNF has become a dispensary," said his former Minister of Justice, Rachida Dati.

And LR MP Eric Ciotti had announced his intention to table a bill to remove it.

An idea that always titillates the right: "I think that the national financial prosecutor's office has lived because it weakens the ideal of justice", affirmed Mr. Peltier.

© 2021 AFP