Claude Guéant, 77, left shortly after 8:30 a.m. discreetly from the penitentiary located in the heart of the capital, in a car with tinted windows, AFP journalists noted.

A sentence enforcement judge decided on Monday to grant his request for parole, based on the fact that the former minister had meanwhile paid his debt to the public treasury and that he was suffering from health problems.

"Claude Guéant must now very quickly carry out several medical consultations and analyzes given a health situation which has worsened over the past few days and which in particular requires a forthcoming surgical operation", his lawyer Me Philippe Bouchez told AFP. El-Ghozi.

A new legal deadline awaits him next week: he must be tried Tuesday and Wednesday in Nanterre for "illegal financing" of the electoral campaign in Boulogne-Billancourt during the 2012 legislative elections.

The former "cardinal" of Nicolas Sarkozy, who had a long career in the public service, now embodies business related to the 2007-2012 five-year term.

However, it is a file prior to the presidency, in which he has been definitively sentenced since 2019, which earned him these two months in prison.

Claude Guéant on December 5, 2018 Eric Feferberg AFP / Archives

Claude Guéant was condemned for having drawn, between 2002 and 2004, in an envelope intended for the expenses of investigation and monitoring of the police officers, whereas he was chief of staff of Nicolas Sarkozy, Minister for the Interior.

other business

On January 23, 2017, he was found guilty of complicity in the embezzlement of public funds and concealment by the Paris Court of Appeal, which imposed on him two years' imprisonment, including one year and a fine of 75,000 euros.

Along with four other defendants, Mr. Guéant had also been ordered to pay 210,000 euros in damages to the State – the equivalent over the period of 10,000 euros per month, of which Claude Guéant kept half, the rest being paid to three collaborators.

Since 2019 and the rejection of his appeal, he had been serving this sentence on parole, in particular because of his age, with the obligation to pay, little by little, the sums due.

The Sentence Enforcement Division of the Paris Court of Appeal had however pointed out on November 9 that he had settled "only 36%" of his debt and this, for "a large part, under duress through of seizures", which led to a partial withdrawal of his sentence adjustment and his incarceration a month later.

As the law allows, Mr. Guéant had immediately made a new request for development, granted on Monday.

The decision mentions that he has settled his debt "in full" - via loans granted by his relatives, according to his lawyer - that he "suffers from pathologies which require regular follow-ups" that he "no longer works in the service of the 'State', according to an extract consulted by AFP.

On January 21, while he was in prison, he was sentenced in his absence in the Elysée polls case, being sentenced to one year in prison, including eight months, for favoritism at the time. where he was secretary general of the presidency.

He appealed.

He also remains under investigation in the case of suspicions of Libyan financing of Nicolas Sarkozy's campaign in 2007. The investigations into one aspect of this sprawling file, concerning in particular the sale of paintings by Mr. Guéant, were closed in July, which could lead to a trial on these facts.

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