The former French president Nicholas Sarkozy has gone on trial today in Paris. He is accused of illegally taking funding from the late Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi. Prosecutors allege the men struck a deal to fund Mr Sarkozy's ultimately successful campaign for the presidency in 2007. In return, they say he promised to help Colonel Gaddafi shed his pariah status on the world stage. The former French president denies the accusations. Also in the programme: Hamas has released a list of 34 hostages that it says it is willing to release in the first stage of a potential ceasefire agreement with Israel. We speak to the daughter of one of those on the list; and the efforts to save the endangered Iberian Lynx in Portugal and Spain. (Picture: Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrives on the first day of his trial. Credit: Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters)
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Hello and welcome to NewsHour.
It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service studios in central London.
I'm Tim Franks.
And just to let you know about something that will be coming up, we imagine in about 40 minutes or so, we're going to be hearing from Canada where the long serving Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is about to hold a press conference.
There is a lot of, I think what we can do delicately call informed speculation that he is going to announce that he is stepping down.
We'll hear him speak and we'll be finding out why later in the program.
We're beginning, though with a story which you might think on first hearing might not sound that stunning former leader on trial over allegations of backhanders.
But this is a story on another scale and perhaps with big implications right now.
The former leader is Nicolas Sarkozy, one time president of France.
The alleged slush fund, well, that was for his victorious run to the Elysee palace in 2007.
And it came, so prosecutors say, from one of the world's then most ostracized dictators, the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
And that was the sound of the presidential guard in Paris playing as Nicolas Sarkozy hosted Mr.
Gaddafi at the Elysee in 2007 after he turned after he'd been elected president and bringing Mr.
Gaddafi very firmly in from the cold.
Well, the start of the trial today comes at the end of a mammoth 10 year investigation and as we'll hear in a moment, could have a major impact on the already filthy opinion many in France have of their politics.