Nicolas Sarkozy is back where he used to be – dominating the news and dividing the nation.
Thirteen years after he left office, he is about to become the first former French president to be sent to prison after getting a five-year term for criminal conspiracy.
The circumstances are full of the same sulphurous contention that used once to mark his every move. Fresh from his sentencing in the 'Libyan money' trial on Thursday, he spoke with incandescent rage about the 'limitless hatred' of which he said he was still a victim.
From the moment he emerged as a champion of the right, Sarkozy was convinced he had been the target of a left-wing cabal within the French judiciary and media.
Many will feel some sympathy with Sarkozy – not necessarily that he is entirely guiltless in this matter of seeking Libyan campaign money. But they will see some truth in his claims of victimisation: that there are indeed some in the Paris 'politico-mediatic-judicial' establishment who loathe the former president and rejoice in bringing him down.
Why else would there be such a litany of lawsuits against him? Why else would Sarkozy already have been convicted on two other charges of corruption – once for trying to suborn a judge, and another time for illegal campaign funding? And if the court has now decided to throw the book at him in the Libya affair, maybe it is because the charge of trying to elicit election funds from a foreign dictator is actually a rather serious one.
Nicolas Sarkozy has long since left office, and there is no prospect of his returning. He is a figure of the past. But his case lays bare the divisions in a very divided country.
