Recommending: The Sarkozy Affair
The Global Story
BBC
3.8 • 663 Ratings
🗓️ 12 April 2026
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode of the BBC Radio 4 series, Archive on 4, our very own Tristan Redman tells the story of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s rise and fall.
The former French President was jailed last year for conspiring to fund his 2007 election campaign with money from the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. He’s currently appealing his sentence. And he has some powerful supporters.
Using archive recordings and contemporary interviews with those who know Sarkozy well, Tristan Redman tells the story of how he became the first former French head of state to end up behind bars since Nazi collaborator, Philippe Pétain.
Featuring investigative journalist, Fabrice Arfi from Mediapart; Daniele Klein whose brother was killed in the ‘French Lockerbie’ and her niece Melanie who lost her father; Alain Minc, one of Nicolas Sarkozy’s closest friends and advisers; the British writer and academic Andrew Hussey and Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank, who was Sarkozy’s finance minister.
Presenter: Tristan Redman
Producer: Adele Armstrong
Sound: Peregrine Andrews
Editor: Penny Murphy
Credits: Mediapart, Euronews, France Télévisions, TF1 and France 2
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:05.7 | Hello, friends. This is Tristan here, and we have a little bit of bonus content for you. |
| 0:10.8 | When I've not been making the global story, I've been making something on the side. |
| 0:16.2 | It's a documentary called The Sarkozy Affair, and it's a delve into one of the most bonkers political scandals you're ever likely to hear. |
| 0:25.6 | It's the story of the rise, demise, and attempts to rise again of the former French President Nicholas Sarkozy. |
| 0:33.5 | We hope you enjoy it. |
| 0:38.3 | It's 2005, and we're in Tripoli, the capital of Libya. |
| 0:43.3 | A French minister is on an official visit. |
| 0:47.3 | There was a dinner, an evening event, at the French Embassy. |
| 0:53.3 | At the dinner, there are 80 guests, there are toasts. |
| 0:58.0 | This is Libya in the final phase of Muammar Gaddafi's rule. |
| 1:02.8 | Colonel Gaddafi, the dictator, doesn't know it yet, |
| 1:06.4 | but within a few years, he'll be deposed and then murdered by a mob. |
| 1:11.3 | But for now, in our story, he's still in charge. |
| 1:17.0 | And then some Libyan officials turned up. |
| 1:19.5 | And they said, there's someone we need you to meet. |
| 1:24.0 | This is Fabrice Arfi, an investigative journalist with the website Media Part, who's telling us the story. |
| 1:31.7 | He says the officials accompany the minister outside to a waiting car. |
| 1:37.0 | The minister gets in. |
| 1:38.9 | Later, he'll say he doesn't know at first where the car's taking him or who he's heading to meet. |
| 1:45.3 | There's no ambassador nor any diplomats with him. |
| 1:51.7 | At the embassy, they don't know he's leaving. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.