FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
The former French president is sentenced to 5 years in prison for criminal links to the Gaddafi regime, which he then bombed with NATO. A tale of hypocrisy that destroyed Libya and destabilized the Mediterranean.
What happened in Paris today has the flavor of a Dantean revenge. A French court sentenced former President Nicolas Sarkozy to five years in prison, without suspension, for criminal complicity in receiving illegal electoral funding from Muammar Gaddafi's regime during the 2007 campaign.
It was precisely that Gaddafi, and that Libya, that four years later, in 2011, would be bombed by the same Sarkozy, at the head of a NATO campaign to overthrow the colonel who once welcomed him with the red carpet in Paris.
From Gaddafi's millions to NATO bombings
On March 19, 2011, Sarkozy's France was the first country to drop bombs on Libyan forces, launching Operation Harmattan, coordinated with American and British campaigns, in the name of UN Resolution 1973 establishing a no-fly zone over Libya.
After this offensive, which ultimately toppled Gaddafi and plunged Libya into chaos, a great hypocrisy came to light: France had taken money from a regime that it then bombed to overthrow.
50 million euros to win the 2007 elections
According to investigators, Gaddafi gave up to 50 million euros to Sarkozy for his 2007 electoral campaign against Socialist candidate Ségolène Royal, an amount that far exceeded the legal limit of 21 million.
After the victory, Paris and Tripoli had a diplomatic "honeymoon", where Gaddafi visited France and attempts were made to integrate Libya into the French Union for the Mediterranean project.
But by 2011, everything changed. France took up the war flag, prompting the involvement of Italy, the US, and NATO in the overthrow of a regime that a few years earlier had been giving it millions.
Why did Sarkozy want to overthrow Gaddafi?
Besides the ambition to direct EU military policy and show the US that Europe could act on its own, there was a darker motive: the fear that Gaddafi would expose him before the 2012 elections for illegal financing.
Behind the scenes, the influence of Qatar, an ally of France and supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood in Libya, further pushed Paris towards the overthrow of Gaddafi, removing Italy's dominant role in the neighboring country.
Sarkozy toppled Gaddafi, and then Berlusconi
In this competition for influence in Libya, Italy was seen by Sarkozy as a second-rate partner. He did not even spare political maneuvering to help overthrow Silvio Berlusconi in November 2011, who had close ties to Gaddafi and had signed a treaty of friendship with him.
Consequences: Libya, a failed state
After the fall of Gaddafi, Libya became a "non-state": divided between Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, filled with militias, with Russians, Turks and other foreign forces intervening, just a few kilometers from the coast of Italy.
This is Sarkozy's true legacy: a broken Libya, producing migration, arms trafficking and instability for the entire Mediterranean. / Adapted from "Inside Over"
Franca kombi me bythq*! Kjo dihet historikisht. Prandaj edhe ne, si kombi me i vjeter pellazgo-iliro-otoman e respektojme me shoqata frankofonesh!
Ma bere diten malet më ato fjale që ke thene.