Prosecutors claim Sarkozy spent nearly 43 million euros on his lavish re-election bid — almost double the legal limit of 22.5 million euros — using fake invoices, and demanded he answers the charges in court.
Sarkozy’s lawyers appealed to the Constitutional Council, which rules on the admissibility of laws and legal rulings, arguing that he had already paid a financial penalty for the overspending. Bygmalion executives and Jerome Lavrilleux, the deputy manager of Sarkozy’s 2012 campaign, have acknowledged the existence of fraud and false accounting.