France’s top court has upheld former president Nicolas Sarkozy’s corruption conviction, rejecting his appeal.

Wednesday’s Supreme Court ruling means Sarkozy, who was in power from 2007 to 2012, must now wear an electronic monitoring bracelet for a year.

Sarkozy, 69, responded that he was not prepared to accept a “gross injustice” and would now appeal to the European Court of Human Rights to challenge the verdict.

He was initially sentenced to three years in prison in 2021, but two of those years were suspended and the third year was changed to electronic monitoring instead of prison.

In 2014, after Sarkozy left office, he was found guilty of trying to bribe a judge by suggesting he could get him a prestigious job in exchange for information about another case.

In her 2021 ruling, Judge Christine Mée said the conservative politician “knew what he was doing was wrong,” adding that his and his lawyer’s actions gave the public a “very poor image of justice.” “.

The offenses are designated as influence peddling and breach of professional confidentiality.

After the Supreme Court ruling on Wednesday, Sarkozy’s lawyer Patrice Spinosi said his client would abide by the terms of his conviction.

Sarkozy has now exhausted all legal options in France and his planned appeal to the European Court of Human Rights will not delay the execution of the sentence.

The 2021 verdict is a legal milestone for postwar France.

The only precedent is the trial of Sarkozy’s predecessor Jacques Chirac, who was sentenced to two years’ probation in 2011 for arranging bogus jobs for allies at Paris City Hall while he was mayor of Paris. Chirac died in 2019.