Double Standards: Justice for the Powerful Versus Justice for the People

There is one thing France loves to proclaim: equality before the law. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. Three words engraved on the pediments of its courthouses. Three words that ring increasingly hollow when one looks at how the justice system actually treats those subject to its jurisdiction—depending on whether they are powerful or ordinary citizens.

Nicolas Sarkozy was convicted in several cases involving corruption, influence peddling, and illegal campaign financing. He became the first president of the Fifth Republic to be incarcerated, on October 21, 2025—and was released after only 21 days in custody, sparking a media firestorm and a national debate on equality before the law. Twenty-one days. For years of documented corruption. Meanwhile, ordinary citizens are held in pretrial detention for far lesser offenses. evrimagaci

Meanwhile, Guillaume Meurice was fired for serious misconduct by Radio France in June 2024 for repeating on the air a joke describing Benjamin Netanyahu as “a sort of Nazi without a foreskin.” The complaints filed against him were dismissed by the courts. He committed no offense recognized by a court—and yet, he lost his job. Anadolu Ajansı

Dieudonné, for his part, has racked up convictions, performance bans, and an electronic ankle monitor—all for jokes. Jokes deemed despicable, to be sure. But jokes nonetheless. Zemmour, convicted several times for inciting racial hatred, has become a presidential candidate and a millionaire columnist.

While ordinary citizens are denied even the slightest information about the government’s budgetary missteps, the government, for its part, knows everything about them. The people are being monitored. The elites are being protected. This isn’t a two-tiered justice system. It’s two different justice systems for two different categories of citizens. And this reality should make us furious. David Guyon, Attorney