The Court of Cassation, France’s highest court, on Wednesday upheld an appeal court’s decision to find ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy guilty of illegal campaign financing during his 2012 reelection bid, along with his campaign manager and two aides from his political party. The appeals court sentenced Sarkozy to a year of imprisonment with a six-month suspended sentence.

On the same set of facts before the appeal court, the Court of Cassation found that Sarkozy had violated Article L113-1 of the electoral code. This article states that illegal campaign financing has occurred when a candidate “knows that they have exceeded the spending limit authorized by law.”

The Court of Cassation also rejected the defendants’ three grounds for appeal. The decision was first appealed on the basis that the supplementary judge to the three-judge panel, who is appointed in case one of the judges must step down, wrongly participated in the proceedings and deliberation. The court found that the judge was entitled to participate in the former and was not present at the latter. The second point of appeal, that the Constitutional Council and the appeal court estimated the campaign account expenses differently, was also rejected. The Court of Cassation refused this claim on the basis that campaign expenses had been concealed from the council, which the appeal court was then able to trace. Under Article 3 of a 1962 law on presidential elections, presidential candidates receive an allowance for their campaign financing from the state. They must then account for their expenditure to the National Commission on Campaign Accounts and Political Financing. Lastly, the court stated that the appeals court considered all relevant arguments pertaining to the defendants other than Sarkozy, therefore satisfactorily establishing their complicity.

The ex-president was originally convicted for having knowingly spent €42.8 million on his 2012 campaign, about twice the legal limit of €22.5 million. This came to be described as the “Bygmalion affair,” after the public affairs firm which facilitated the financing through the creation of fake invoices.

Sarkozy is currently on conditional release from prison while he appeals a second conviction for attempting to raise campaign funds from Libya in 2007.