Sarkozy, in an unprecedented punishment for a former head of state, is now wearing an electronic ankle tag after France’s Court of Cassation in December upheld a verdict for him to serve a one-year term outside of prison with the GPS device.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The combative ex-president ruled France from 2007-2012 but failed to win a second mandate in a devastating election defeat to Socialist Francois Hollande and then became embroiled in a string of legal problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There had been speculation Sarkozy could lose his Legion of Honour award but Macron, who as head of state is the grand master of the decoration and would have a final say, said he respected Sarkozy and would oppose such a move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00ab\u00a0I think it is very important that former presidents are respected,\u00a0\u00bb he said on the sidelines of a trip to Madagascar, adding he believed \u00ab\u00a0it would not be a good decision\u00a0\u00bb to strip Sarkozy of the award.<\/p>\n\n\n \u00ab\u00a0The fact that he was elected president by the sovereign people means he deserves respect. He has my respect. I think he has the respect of the French people,\u00a0\u00bb said Macron.<\/p>\n\n\n\n General Francois Lecointre, France’s former military chief of staff who now serves as the grand chancellor of the Legion of Honour, said last month that such a removal of the award was foreseen under the rules of the order, which was established early in the 19th century by Napoleon Bonaparte.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to the code of the Legion of Honour, any person definitively sentenced to a prison sentence equal to or greater than one year in prison is \u00ab\u00a0excluded by right\u00a0\u00bb from the order, Lecointre noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If Sarkozy is stripped of the award, he would no longer be able to wear it on pain of prosecution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But while acknowledging that the order has its \u00ab\u00a0rules\u00a0\u00bb, Macron said: \u00ab\u00a0If I have the freedom of manoeuvre I prefer that a former president retains his place in the order that he belongs to. It’s something to have been president of France.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n\n\n\n Macron himself must step down in 2027 after serving the maximum two terms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sarkozy is using his last remaining legal avenue, an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, to defend himself against the conviction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He is currently on trial in a separate case on charges of accepting illegal campaign financing in an alleged pact with late Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The court is to give a verdict in September with prosecutors asking for a seven-year prison term for Sarkozy, who denies the charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite his legal problems, Sarkozy remains an influential figure on the right and is known to regularly meet with Macron.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday said he opposed stripping former head of state Nicolas Sarkozy of France’s top honour despite the definitive conviction of the right-winger last year on charges of influence-peddling and corruption. Sarkozy, in an unprecedented punishment for a former head of state, is now wearing an electronic ankle tag after France’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":18007,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1772,2939,1236,1274],"tags":[812,1590,1680],"adr_country":[1090,1097],"class_list":{"0":"post-18009","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editors-choice-fr","8":"category-europe-fr","9":"category-lead","10":"category-world-fr","11":"tag-france-fr","12":"tag-justice-fr","13":"tag-trial-fr","14":"adr_country-france","15":"adr_country-monde"},"acf":{"post_version":""},"yoast_head":"\n