Sarkozy resigns from Constitutional Council on campaign spending issue

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced on Thursday his resignation from the Constitutional Council after the country's top constitutional body confirmed his excess of spending limits during his 2012 presidential campaign. "Following the decsion of the Constitutional Court and given the gravity of the situation and the resulting consequences for the opposition and for democracy, Nicolas Sarkozy resigned immediately from the council," he said in a statement. Earlier in the day, the Constitutional Council has rejected Sarkozy's campaign accounts for the 2012 presidential election which exceeded the spending ceiling by 2.1 percent to about 22.5 million euros (29 million U.S. dollars). France's top constitutional body decision was likely to plunge the conservative party UMP into a financial crisis as it lost out on a nearly 10-million-euro reimbursement. In a statement posted on the party's website, The UMP head, Jean-Francois Cope said the party's political bureau will meet next week "to consider all the consequences of this decision." He also said the party launched a "national fund" in a bid to face the financial crisis the party may face. "I hear some people start talking about the idea that the UMP, strangled financially, could not continue to make its voice heard, it could no longer denounce the left's politics, which has all the powers and that it could no longer offer a path of hope for France," Cope said. "But, I want to say that the UMP's voice will not die out," he added. (1 euro = 1.291 U.S. dollars)