Latest news with #VichyFrance
Russia Today
16-06-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
Sarkozy stripped of France's highest state award
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been excluded from the prestigious National Order of the Legion of Honor, according to a state decree published on Sunday. The revocation follows a 2022 conviction for corruption and influence peddling. Established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802, the Legion of Honor (Légion d'honneur) is currently France's highest award. It is bestowed for exemplary civil or military service and is regarded as a mark of distinction and official recognition of exceptional merit. The rules of the Legion of Honor mandate the exclusion of any recipient sentenced to a term of imprisonment of one year or more. The exclusion stems from a conviction in what has become known as the 'wiretapping affair.' In 2021, Sarkozy, who led France from 2007 to 2012, was found guilty of attempting to bribe a judge in exchange for confidential information about a separate investigation related to his 2007 presidential campaign. In 2023, the former president was handed a three-year prison sentence, including two years suspended and the remaining one at home with electronic monitoring. In late 2024, the Court of Cassation, France's highest court, upheld the sentence that Sarkozy had sought to challenge. The revocation makes Sarkozy the second head of the French state to be stripped of the Legion of Honor; the first was the notorious Marshal Philippe Petain. The head of the Nazi puppet regime of Vichy France during World War II was convicted of high treason in 1945. The decision to strip Sarkozy of the award came despite the reported reluctance of current French President Emmanuel Macron, who said in April that he thought that the former head of state 'deserves respect.'
Powys County Times
15-06-2025
- Politics
- Powys County Times
French ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy stripped of Legion of Honour medal
France's former president Nicolas Sarkozy has been stripped of his Legion of Honour medal after being convicted last year of corruption and influence peddling while he was the country's head of state. The decision was made via a decree released in the Journal Officiel that publishes the government's major legal information. It comes in line with the rules of the Legion of Honour. The conservative politician, who was president from 2007 to 2012, has been at the heart of a series of legal cases since leaving office. He was found guilty of corruption and influence peddling by both a Paris court in 2021 and an appeals court in 2023 for trying to bribe a magistrate in exchange for information about a legal case in which he was implicated. He was sentenced to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet for one year, a verdict upheld by France's highest court, the Court of Cassation, in December. Earlier this year, Sarkozy stood trial over allegations he received millions of dollars from Libya for his successful presidential campaign in 2007. He denies the claims. Prosecutors requested a seven-year prison sentence. The verdict is expected in September. Sarkozy becomes the second former head of state to be stripped of the Legion of Honour – France's highest distinction – after Nazi collaborator Philippe Petain, who was convicted in 1945 for treason and conspiring with the enemy for his actions as leader of Vichy France from 1940-1944. Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein was stripped of his Legion of Honour award in the wake of widespread sexual misconduct allegations against him in 2017. Disgraced cyclist and former Tour de France star Lance Armstrong also had his French Legion of Honour award revoked.
15-06-2025
- Politics
French ex-president Sarkozy stripped of Legion of Honor medal over corruption scandal
PARIS -- France's former President Nicolas Sarkozy has been stripped of his Legion of Honor medal after being convicted last year of corruption and influence peddling while he was the country's head of state, it was announced on Sunday. The decision was made via a decree released in the Journal Officiel that publishes the government's major legal information. It comes in line with the rules of the Legion of Honor. The conservative politician, who was president from 2007 to 2012, has been at the heart of a series of legal cases since leaving office. He was found guilty of corruption and influence peddling by both a Paris court in 2021 and an appeals court in 2023 for trying to bribe a magistrate in exchange for information about a legal case in which he was implicated. He was sentenced to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet for one year, a verdict upheld by France's highest court, the Court of Cassation, in December. Earlier this year, Sarkozy stood trial over allegations he received millions of dollars from Libya for his successful presidential campaign in 2007. He denies the claims. Prosecutors requested a seven-year prison sentence. The verdict is expected in September. Sarkozy becomes the second former head of state to be stripped of the Legion of Honor — France's highest distinction — after Nazi collaborator Philippe Petain, who was convicted in 1945 for treason and conspiring with the enemy for his actions as leader of Vichy France from 1940-1944. Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein was stripped of his Legion of Honor award in the wake of widespread sexual misconduct allegations against him in 2017. Disgraced cyclist and former Tour de France star Lance Armstrong also had his French Legion of Honor award revoked. Sarkozy retired from public life in 2017 though still plays an influential role in French conservative politics.
Euronews
15-06-2025
- Politics
- Euronews
Sarkozy stripped of Legion of Honour
France's former President Nicolas Sarkozy has been stripped of his Legion of Honour medal following his conviction last year of corruption and influence peddling while in office, it was announced on Sunday. The decision was made public via a decree released in the Journal Officiel that publishes the government's major legal information. It aligns with the rules of the Legion of Honour. The conservative politician, who was president from 2007 to 2012, has been at the heart of a series of legal cases since leaving office. He was found guilty of corruption and influence peddling by both a Paris court in 2021 and an appeals court in 2023 for trying to bribe a magistrate in exchange for information about a legal case in which he was implicated. He was sentenced to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet for one year, a verdict upheld by France's highest court, the Court of Cassation, in December. Earlier this year, Sarkozy stood trial over allegations that he received milions of Dollars from Libya for his successful presidential campaign in 2007. He denies the claims. Prosecutors requested a seven-year prison sentence. The verdict is expected in September. Sarkozy becomes the second former head of state to be stripped of the Legion of Honour — France's highest distinction — after Nazi collaborator Philippe Petain, who was convicted in 1945 for treason and conspiring with the enemy for his actions as leader of Vichy France from 1940-1944. Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein was stripped of his Legion of Honour award in the wake of widespread sexual misconduct allegations against him in 2017. Disgraced cyclist and former Tour de France star Lance Armstrong also had his French Legion of Honour award revoked. Sarkozy retired from public life in 2017 but still plays an influential role in French conservative politics. Local Ukrainian media quoted Ukrainian authorities on Sunday morning reporting another massive aerial attack, involving drones, artillery and missiles, among them the hypersonic Khinzal, as well as Iskander and Kalibr cruise missiles. In the southern city of Kherson, one person was killed and another injured, Kherson Oblast administration reported. The main target was the city of Kremenchuk in Poltava Oblast. There were no reported casualties but energy and agricultural facilities were hit by debris. Of the nearly 200 weapons, the Ukrainian air force reported 111 drones downed with a further 48 diverted, and two Kinzhal, three Iskander-K and three Kalibr missiles shot down.
The Guardian
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The best recent translated fiction
The Propagandist by Cécile Desprairies, translated by Natasha Lehrer (Swift, £14.99) This clever and vivid book by a historian of Vichy France falls somewhere between autobiographical novel and fictionalised memoir. It opens as a colourful story based on the author's family: her grandmother's morphine addiction, her aunt Zizi's vanity (she 'boasted that all she kept in her refrigerator were beauty products'), and her mother's reluctance to talk about the past. But what were grandmother and Zizi doing in the pages of Nazi propaganda magazine Signal? The narrator learns her family were 'Nazi sympathisers', though the phrase hardly captures the zeal of her mother Lucie's support. The details are shocking: to Lucie and her lover, 'mice, rats and Jews were basically the same', and she has no regrets after the war. 'If all the French had been on the right side, Germany would have won.' Their blinkered support has lessons for today, too. 'What does it matter if something is true or false,' asks one character, 'if you believe it to be true?' Lovers of Franz K by Burhan Sönmez, translated by Sami Hêzil (Open Borders, £12.99) Nazi-supporting parents feature in this novel too, set in West Berlin in 1968, the year of revolutionary protests around the world. A young man of Turkish descent faces off against a police commissioner. Ferdy Kaplan is under investigation for killing a student – but his intended target was Max Brod, the executor of Franz Kafka's estate who published Kafka's work against his wishes. Police suspect Ferdy had an antisemitic motive against the Jewish Brod, 'influenced by [his parents'] ideas'. There's a Kafkaesque quality to the interrogation – 'It is our job to assume the opposite of what you tell us,' the police say – but Kurdish author Sönmez is really interested in the question of who owns literature. Was Brod right to publish? Would Kafka be unknown if he hadn't? The dialogue-led approach makes the book punchy and fast-moving, and brings some surprising twists before the end. Back in the Day by Oliver Lovrenski, translated by Nichola Smalley (Hamish Hamilton, £14.99) Sixteen-year-old Ivor is a typical schoolboy in Norway: 'every day sitting in the same classroom, getting smart, creating chaos' and torn between 'the side of me that wanted to do good things, and the other side saying, chill man, no stress'. That other side tends to win, as he and his friends Marco, Jonas and Arjan get up to antics that may need further translation for middle-aged readers: 'bunn a zoot', 'we blazed some lemon haze', 'we rocked up like we was about to harvest some bamboo'. But amid the intensity of young male friendship, there's love, family loyalty and vulnerability. 'Sometimes you hang the biggest towel you can find over the mirror [cos] you wanna smash the face of the brother staring back at you.' The energy and richness of this novel would be impressive, even if Lovrenski hadn't been only 19 years old when he wrote it. Waist Deep by Linea Maja Ernst, translated by Sherilyn Hellberg (Jonathan Cape, £14.99) Five friends, one week, a summerhouse: sounds like a dream – which could become a nightmare. 'It'll be like our own clever talk show, fabulous and never-ending,' says one character. Danish debut novelist Ernst delineates her characters snappily, from Esben, an experimental poet who went commercial with a novel about his mother, to Gry, who 'hasn't eaten any carbohydrates in three weeks'. But what brings the friends together and drives them apart is sex. Central to this is 'confused' Sylvia, who enjoys being dominated by her 'dreamboat' girlfriend Charlie: 'She has been a jug full of dark, heavy liquid, and now the jug is broken', is her description of being brought to orgasm. But Sylvia also gets angry at the 'vanilla hetero-banality' of the other happily settled couples. The novel is operatic in its emotional intensity and its surprise pairings, but ultimately a lament for lost youth. 'Weren't they true radicals just a second ago?' wonders Sylvia. Weren't we all?
