Nicolas Sarkozy's hopes of a second term as president of France took a big blow Monday when a French prosecutor recommended he stand trial over illegal campaign funding in 2012, when he lost the Elysee Palace to socialist Francois Hollande. The prosecutor's decision does not mean that Sarkozy will automatically stand trial. It is for a judge to rule if this should happen. But the very existence of the prosecutor's finding leaves a dark cloud over Sarkozy's plan to win his Republican party's nomination, let alone take part in the first round of the presidential election next May. Within the Republican party, he faces a challenge from former prime minister Alain Juppé. The allegation against Sarkozy, which he denies, is that he knew the way in which his party, then called the UMP, covered up illegal excess spending on his presidential campaign by having a public relations company bill his party for their services rather than the campaign itself. Sarkozy has said that the mis-billing of the overspend was done without his knowledge. The flamboyant politician has other political skeletons in his cupboard which include accusations that in 2007 he was given a substantial sum by Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. This he also denies. Sarkozy was also held in police custody in 2014 because of allegations that he promised a plum job to a judge in exchange for information about another inquiry into suspected illegal campaign funding. The year before he had been cleared of accepting secret financial support from the L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt. The problem for Sarkozy is that while he might be innocent of all these allegations, more and more mud is sticking. The French center-right is going to have to ask itself if, in comparison with Juppé, he is going to bring too much baggage to the presidential candidacy. And whoever wins the nomination is going to have a tough battle, not with the politically-wounded socialist Hollande, who has not even said that he will seek a second term, but with the far-right National Front. Sarkozy, the man who banned the wearing of headscarves in schools, has already demonstrated that he is prepared to try and chase the NF's Marine Le Pen to the bottom of the political barrel when it comes to racism and xenophobia. The one given of French politics that he has not abandoned is his country's commitment to the European Union. However, with the British vote to exit the EU, Le Pen's anti-Brussels stance has become more threatening. The French voted only narrowly to accept the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. Even though the EU has evolved very much in the French political mold and French farmers in particular have benefitted handsomely from the Common Agricultural Policy, ordinary Frenchmen citizens are much less enthusiastic about the Union than their political masters. Sarkozy has already said that the EU needs some reform. If he thinks it will help him to outbid Le Pen, he would almost certainly be prepared to attack Brussels much more vigorously. But it is now unclear that he is actually going to be given the chance. The prosecutor's recommendation that he stand trial over the campaign expenses' fraud has surely jeopardized his bid, even if the case does not end in a full-blown, scandal
