French ex-president Sarkozy has electronic tag removed

French authorities have removed the electronic tag that former president Nicolas Sarkozy was ordered to wear following his conviction for graft, Paris prosecutors said on Thursday.

Sarkozy was fitted with the tag in February instead of serving a one-year jail sentence for illegal attempts to secure favours from a judge, a first for a former French head of state.

In December 2024, France's highest appeals court ordered the 70-year-old to wear the tag for a year but said he could, given his age, apply for early parole.

That was granted on Wednesday after Sarkozy had served just over three months, the prosecutor's office told AFP.

Sarkozy, who has been beset by legal problems since leaving office in 2012 following a bruising presidential election defeat, has said he is innocent and is taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights.

The removal of the tag means Sarkozy no longer has to endure the physical inconvenience of the bulky device, which was worn concealed underneath his trouser. 

But the move has no impact on his conviction. 

It comes with conditions, the prosecutor's office added, including the obligation for Sarkozy to report any travel abroad, comply with summonses and receive visits from probation officers.

Sarkozy's lawyer confirmed to AFP that the electronic tag was removed.

In December, a court found Sarkozy and former lawyer Thierry Herzog guilty of forming a "corruption pact" with judge Gilbert Azibert to obtain and share information about an investigating judge.

The deal was done in return for the promise of a plum retirement job in Monaco for the judge.

A court will rule in September in a separate case on charges that Sarkozy accepted illegal campaign financing in an alleged pact with late Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi.

The prosecution has requested that if Sarkozy is found guilty, he should face a seven-year prison term.

He denies the charges.

Despite his legal problems, Sarkozy remains an influential figure on the right and is known to regularly meet President Emmanuel Macron.

There has been speculation Sarkozy could lose France's top distinction, the Legion of Honour, over his judicial entanglements.

General Francois Lecointre -- France's former military chief of staff and now the grand chancellor of the Legion of Honour -- said in March that removing the award was foreseen under the rules of the order, established early in the 19th century by Napoleon Bonaparte.

But in April, Macron, who as head of state is the grand master of the decoration and would have a final say, said he would oppose such a move.

"I think it is very important that former presidents are respected," Macron said on the sidelines of an April trip to Madagascar.

He added that he believed "it would not be a good decision" to strip Sarkozy of the award.

Before Sarkozy, the only French leader to be convicted in a criminal trial was his predecessor Jacques Chirac.

He received a two-year suspended sentence in 2011 for corruption over a fake jobs scandal.

Sarkozy is France's first post-war president to be sentenced to serve time.