Sarkozy Jailed, Moldova Votes on Europe, and Macron Links Palestine Embassy to Hostage Release
A historic prison sentence for Nicolas Sarkozy, a decisive parliamentary election in Moldova, and Emmanuel Macron’s bold UN move on Palestine define a turbulent week in French and European politics.
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This week
🧑⚖️Sarkozy is going to prison
🇲🇩Moldova votes on its European future
🇵🇸Macron wants to trade hostages for Palestine embassy
🧑⚖️Sarkozy is going to prison
Right, let’s start the week off strong:
12 years after the launch of the Direction centrale de la police judiciaire’s investigation into the funding of former President Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidential election campaign by Muammar Gaddafi, the entire affair is almost completely closed.
And the result: Nicolas Sarkozy has been sentenced, by the Paris tribunal, to five years in prison for criminal association in the Libyan financing case.
Nicolas Sarkozy is now the first former president in the history of the five French Republics to be sentenced to serve time in prison.
Naturally, Sarkozy has been positioning himself for a fight against this final judgment for the past few months. He’s pushed for a dissolution of the Assemblée post-Bayrou, defended Marine Le Pen in light of her ban from public and political life, and claimed that the Rassemblement National are Republican.
Clearly, he’s banking on the RN winning a potential legislative election and pushing forward their amnesty law for Marine Le Pen, and maybe hoping they’ll throw him a bone.
Now, similarly to Marine Le Pen, and for the second time in six months, the impartiality of the French judicial system has been called into question, leading to several threats against the legal institutions of the French Republic.
Two investigations have now been opened by the National Unit for the Fight against Online Hate, following threats of murder or serious violence that have been sent to the president of the court that sentenced Sarkozy.
This has even led to one of France’s highest-ranking magistrates has been pushed to issue a statement to deplore threats against magistrates who sat on a court in a political case, following Sarkozy calling into question their impartiality.
Things have escalated to such an extent that former Sarkozy ally and party member, Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin, came out with an aggressive defence against the threats made to defend Sarkozy against the consequences of his own actions:
“Intimidation and death threats against magistrates are absolutely unacceptable in a democracy. I condemn them without reservation.
Following my instructions given upon my arrival at the Chancellery to vigorously prosecute anyone who attacks officials of the Ministry of Justice and law enforcement, the Paris public prosecutor has opened an investigation.
Challenging a court decision is a right: this is done before the appeal judge, never through violent personal attacks.”
Now, while the “final” judgement has been passed down by the courts, and while Sarkozy will have to start serving his prison time within the next few weeks, his legal team has lodged an appeal in order to “make sure that his incarceration will be as short as possible”, according to his lawyer Jean-Michel Darrois.
But none of this will stop the regular Trumpian attacks on the French judicial system and the rule of law in the French Republic.
Henri Guaino, one of Sarkozy’s former advisors, claimed that the conviction for corruption and an effective manipulation of a French election by a foreign power, which I’m tempted to call some form of treason, is in fact “a humiliation for the state and its institutions.”
And naturally, President Emmanuel Macron should get involved and issue a pardon for a man who won an election with foreign financing and assistance? I mean, Jesus Christ.
Luckily, some people on the French right have some sense about them, and have an actual understanding of the weight of their words, and with the rising distrust in the French judiciary, helped in no small part by the far-left and far-right, as well as politicians like Sarkozy who are simply upset that their consequences have actions.
Bruno Retailleau, the Interior minister, stated his full support for Sarkozy, but avoided calling for a pardon, along with several other important members of Les Républicains.
Regardless, Sarko is going to prison, and we’ll see how this all plays out.
🇲🇩Moldova votes on its European future
Looking to Europe quickly: Moldovans are voting today in what could be one of the most consequential elections in their history, electing a new 101 seat parliament that will form a new government based on the leading party or electoral alliance.
Currently, the governing party is the western-aligned, pro-European Union Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS), founded by President Maia Sandu, who currently hold a strong majority of 61 seats in the parliament.
Fighting against the party are several Russia friendly opponents, such as the Patriotic Electoral Bloc of Socialists, Communists, the Heart and Future of Moldova (BEP) or the Victory (V) blocs, with the odd groupings of Pro-EU parties under the Alternative etiquette. There is also the social conservative Russophile party ‘Our Party’ (OP).
However, the pro-European view of the Alternative grouping is disputed, with the EU and the PAS considering them a “trojan horse” created to stall Moldovan accession to the EU, who use soft language to keep a Russian alliance open as a possible option.
Now, in terms of the most recent polls that were published on 22 September 2025 by CBS Research, it’s looking like Sandu’s PAS is close to a full majority alone with 49.5%, compared to the BEP’s 24.0%, while the Alternative bloc comes in at 7.3% and the OP running at 8.8%.
However, another poll run by iData presents a different view, showing the BEP in the lead at 33.9%, slightly ahead of the PAS, which sits at 33.6%, with Alternative polling at 9.8% and OP at 7.4%.
Now, naturally, data in polling has its peculiarities and is only a snapshot in time. Not only this, but it’s no secret that Russia has been running deep interference programmes and actively attempting to reverse Moldova’s pro-European course, running massive disinformation and influence campaigns, all while using fifth columnists to disrupt the country’s European accession.
And as we’ve seen in countries like Romania, this can be highly impactful, but it can also be fought against effectively and aggressively through legal avenues, strong cybersecurity efforts, and an understanding of how Russia actively undermines the democratic values and elections that were fought for and defended with the lives of millions.
However, we’ll have to see how this plays out, and how Moldovans vote tonight, with the result expected to be published this evening.
🇵🇸Macron wants to trade hostages for Palestine embassy
Right, on to the final story of the week: Emmanuel Macron, first of his name, defender of multilateralism, European liberalism, and crusader for Strategic Autonomy, had a good week at the UN General Assembly this week.
He defended the UN against Trump’s mindless / unhinged attack against it, fuelled in part by Trump’s teleprompter breaking, made good on his promise to recognise the Palestinian state at the UN Summit in New York, and even went one step further.
While France is recognising Palestinian statehood, Macron announced that France’s “first [condition] in a series of prerequisites” for any potential French embassy in Palestine, a major diplomatic step in establishing inter-state relations, would be entirely dependent on the release of Israeli hostages being held by Hamas.
Currently, the representation towards the Palestinian authority is the consulate in Jerusalem, with the major embassy in the area being based in Tel Aviv.
Unfortunately, the problem right now is that Hamas is refusing to release the remaining hostages it holds, who are currently stuck between the strong arming between the terrorist organisation and the ongoing offensive led by Netanyahu’s far-right Israeli government.
And unfortunately, in these situations, it will always be the innocent civilians who suffer, whether it’s the hostages who have been held for almost two full years now, or those who are being counted as collateral damage in the ongoing Gaza War.
And unfortunately, this will continue to be a major issue for Macron’s efforts here.
Firstly, with pressure from many that purely concentrate on the plight of Palestinians to the exclusion of all else, and the ongoing political instability, Hamas and its linked actors will hope to be able to just ignore these conditions and continue to behave as they have been.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s government, bolstered by their American support, as well as right-wing conservative actors constantly attacking the decisions to recognise Palestine as a mistake that encourages antisemitism in France and elsewhere, will expect to be able to ignore any ultimatums and diplomatic pressures.
Even as Netanyahu gave a speech to an almost completely empty UNGA.
Meanwhile, bad actors across the spectrum will continue to use the ongoing tragedy to their own ends, attacking Jews and Muslims to satiate their own intolerances, with foreign actors like Russia engaging in destabilising behaviour as always.
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