A former French president may soon be sleeping on a thin prison mattress. Nicolas Sarkozy—once the most powerful man in France—has been sentenced to five years for criminal conspiracy. For once, appeals may not save him.

That single fact matters. Because for decades, the world has watched the same story repeat: politicians loot, cheat, and launder. They deny. They stall. They retire rich. Ordinary people go to jail for tax mistakes or shoplifting. Presidents collect pensions.

Sarkozy’s fall rips a hole in that script. Judges treated him not as a monument, but as a man who broke the law. That is justice in its rawest form: equality. And yet, France is split. Some cry vengeance, others justice. But here’s the truth: if this feels extraordinary, it’s because we’ve accepted corruption as ordinary.

And it isn’t just France.

• In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clings to power while standing trial for bribery, fraud, genocide and war crimes
• In the United States, Donald Trump faces 91 felony counts while still leading a major party and becoming the US president
• In Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva went to prison for corruption before returning as president.
• In South Korea, two former presidents were jailed for bribery and abuse of power.

The pattern is global: politicians treat office as a cash register, then rely on delay, distraction, or division to escape justice.

Meanwhile, citizens see the hypocrisy and stop believing in the system.

In 2024, 94 countries — 54 % of all assessed — declined in at least one core measure of democracy. Only 55 nations (32 %) even advanced. The weakest pillar? Rule of Law, where declines outpaced gains more than any other domain. That’s not a temporary wobble. It’s structural decay.

Democracy no longer just frays at the edges—it’s unraveling in its seams. If the law won’t hold princes to account, democracy isn’t being defended. It’s being hollowed.. When that trust collapses, votes remain—but meaning evaporates.

Democracy does not collapse with tanks in the streets. It collapses when citizens stop believing the law applies to the powerful.

That is why Sarkozy’s cell matters. Not because it redeems France, but because it sends a signal: no one is above the law. And it should not stop here. If democracies are to survive, prisons must stop being warehouses for the powerless and start being reckoning grounds for the corrupt politician around the world.

The question is not whether Sarkozy sleeps in a cell. The question is whether the rest of us will keep tolerating leaders who behave like monarchs while preaching equality.

If democracy is to live, its thieves must fall. Lock them up. Every last one.