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Ex-president Sarkozy Stripped of France's Top Honor after Conviction

Nicolas Sarkozy has been beset by legal problems since leaving office. Bertrand GUAY / AFP/File
Nicolas Sarkozy has been beset by legal problems since leaving office. Bertrand GUAY / AFP/File
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Ex-president Sarkozy Stripped of France's Top Honor after Conviction

Nicolas Sarkozy has been beset by legal problems since leaving office. Bertrand GUAY / AFP/File
Nicolas Sarkozy has been beset by legal problems since leaving office. Bertrand GUAY / AFP/File

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been stripped of his Legion of Honor -- the country's highest distinction -- following a conviction for graft, according to a decree published Sunday.

The right-winger has been beset by legal problems since he was defeated in the 2012 presidential election after serving one five-year term.

Sarkozy, 70, had been wearing an electronic ankle tag until last month after France's highest appeals court upheld his conviction last December of trying to illegally secure favors from a judge.

According to the code of the Legion of Honor, France's top state award, any person definitively sentenced to a term in prison equal to or greater than one year is excluded from the order.

But French President Emmanuel Macron had argued against such a move in April, saying that scandal-plagued Sarkozy had been elected and it was "very important that former presidents are respected".

Despite his legal problems, Sarkozy remains an influential figure on the right and is known to regularly socialize with the president.

Sarkozy becomes the second former head of state to be stripped of the award after Nazi collaborator Philippe Petain, who was convicted in August 1945 for high treason and conspiring with the enemy.

Others to have been stripped of the honor include former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, drug cheat cyclist Lance Armstrong and movie mogul Harvey Weinstein whose conduct with women sparked the #MeToo movement against sexual violence.

Sarkozy is using his last remaining legal avenue, an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, to defend himself against the conviction.

'Shameful' comparison

Sarkozy's lawyer Patrice Spinosi said the former president had "taken note" of the decision to strip him of the Legion of Honor, but stressed that the petition lodged with the ECHR was "still pending".

Any ECHR ruling against France would "imply reviewing the criminal conviction against (Sarkozy) as well as his exclusion from the order of the Legion of Honor", Spinosi said.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot stressed that the "case has not been completely closed" in view of the appeal at European level.

Government spokeswoman Sophie Primas added that comparisons between Sarkozy and Petain were "shameful".

Sarkozy is currently on trial in a separate case on charges of accepting illegal campaign financing in an alleged pact with late Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi.

The court is to issue a verdict in September with prosecutors asking for a seven-year prison term for Sarkozy, who denies the charges.

The Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honor, General Francois Lecointre, has stressed the importance of disciplinary measures to uphold the order's integrity.

Lecointre told reporters in March that "the honor of the order depends on the fact that those decorated can also be sanctioned."

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World

‘I May Lose My Mind’: Frustrated Travelers Stuck in US Flight Havoc

Travelers wait in line at ticket counters at LaGuardia Airport in New York, Friday, Nov. 13, 2026, after the Federal Aviation Administration grounded flights nationwide. (AP)
Travelers wait in line at ticket counters at LaGuardia Airport in New York, Friday, Nov. 13, 2026, after the Federal Aviation Administration grounded flights nationwide. (AP)
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‘I May Lose My Mind’: Frustrated Travelers Stuck in US Flight Havoc

Travelers wait in line at ticket counters at LaGuardia Airport in New York, Friday, Nov. 13, 2026, after the Federal Aviation Administration grounded flights nationwide. (AP)
Travelers wait in line at ticket counters at LaGuardia Airport in New York, Friday, Nov. 13, 2026, after the Federal Aviation Administration grounded flights nationwide. (AP)

Confusion reigned at airports across the United States on Friday as a rare grounding of all US flights stranded hundreds of thousands of frustrated travelers.

In New York's busy LaGuardia airport, Janice Llewellyn was on the verge of tears: the chaos could mean she will miss her daughter's wedding in Toronto.

The 61-year-old Llewellyn was desperate to find an alternative route, telling AFP: "I may lose my mind."

"My husband flew all the way from England to get to the wedding," she said.

"Oh gosh! I wish they had another flight, I wish I could get another flight, like, now."

At the airport in Las Vegas, some fliers were told their journeys were delayed due to wind.

One airline staffer said the ground stop would last eight hours. Another said 24 hours.

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials eventually lifted the ground stop at 8:15 pm ET (0115 GMT Saturday).

"It will take us time (to) resume normal operations," Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said, blaming the incident on telecommunications issues with decades-old equipment.

During the stop, the lack of information led many passengers to form long lines at rental car counters in a mad dash for travel alternatives.

Joseph Anderson said he was trying to get back to Oakland in California from Las Vegas and was considering driving -- but said "if the whole country is stopped, that means the highways are going to be jammed too."

The 72-year-old retired Air Force veteran said his already-checked luggage was captive, meaning "we're kind of stuck."

"I would hope the communication can be better from the FAA," he said.

The ground stop comes less than two weeks before the Thanksgiving holiday, the busiest travel period of the year in the United States.

And it falls ahead of a particularly busy weekend for professional and college sports -- teams and their fans are also stuck.

Back in New York, Tiara Johnson had been heading to Orlando in Florida for a weekend concert, and any hope that she would make it was growing dim.

"You think you're gonna be there in three hours, but your whole evening is kind of done!" the 50-year-old told AFP.

"But hey, they say it's Friday the 13th!"

Harried passengers stared at their phones, calm but annoyed, wandering the airport terminal without clear direction.

Hagit Levy Shalev, 54, was zen.

She booked a new flight for Saturday morning, meaning her work trip would last a little longer.

"I'll get there," she laughed. "One more extra day away from the kids!"

World

US to Resume Flights After Air Traffic Network Failure Sparks Chaos

A message board displays flights at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International airport as all flights are canceled or delayed, Friday, Nov. 13, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP)
A message board displays flights at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International airport as all flights are canceled or delayed, Friday, Nov. 13, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP)
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US to Resume Flights After Air Traffic Network Failure Sparks Chaos

A message board displays flights at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International airport as all flights are canceled or delayed, Friday, Nov. 13, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP)
A message board displays flights at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International airport as all flights are canceled or delayed, Friday, Nov. 13, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP)

The FAA lifted a nationwide ground stop on Friday after a communications failure at air traffic control centers caused chaos at US airports and triggered the longest shutdown since the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said US airspace reopened at 8:15 p.m. Eastern Time (0115 GMT), but warned that departures would resume gradually and it would take time for airlines to restore normal operations.

"It's going to be slow," Duffy told reporters at the White House.

More than 6,600 flights were canceled and 8,600 delayed, with another 1,500 already canceled for Sunday, according to FlightRadar24. Aviation analysts said the four-hour nationwide grounding could disrupt airline schedules for days.

Duffy said tens of thousands of passengers were stranded at airports around the country. Duffy said he and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin had met with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office to discuss the outage.

The failure is the latest and most dramatic sign of strain on a US air ‌traffic control system ‌beset by aging technology, equipment and communications problems and a shortage of several thousand controllers.

Duffy said ‌the ⁠trouble began at ⁠3:36 p.m., when air traffic control centers experienced instability in radar and communications systems.

"Our switches, our routers actually got overloaded with data and they started to give us inconsistencies in the data from those routers and because of that we shut the system down," Duffy said, adding that at no stage did they completely lose radar or communications and they were able to safely land thousands of planes.

Duffy said the immediate problem had been fixed and that flying was safe, but warned that a broader overhaul of the aging air traffic control system was needed to prevent similar failures.

$50 BILLION AVIATION OVERHAUL

Duffy blamed Congress for failing to fund a new system that he said could prevent such outages, ⁠and called for $50 billion to modernize it.

Earlier on Friday, before the outage, the White House ‌and Department of Transportation had urged Congress to approve $30.1 billion to upgrade the nation's ‌aging airports and air traffic control infrastructure.

"What we have is an incredibly old air traffic control system," Duffy said.

"Give us the money to fix ‌it."

Homeland Security Secretary Mullin said there was "zero evidence" so far that the outage resulted from a cyberattack or a rogue AI ‌system, though investigators had not ruled out either possibility.

"It appears this was mechanically driven, however, we're still looking," Mullin said.

The National Security Agency was working with the Department of Homeland Security on the investigation, he added.

The outage appeared to be affecting a telecommunications network overseen by L3Harris Technologies, according to two airline officials. The network handles critical radio frequencies used by air traffic controllers to communicate with pilots. L3Harris did not respond to a request ‌for comment.

PAIN NOT OVER FOR PASSENGERS

Though the ground stop was lifted, the disruption for passengers was far from over. From Boston to Seattle and New York to Los Angeles, passengers ⁠crowded departure halls and airline desks ⁠as delays and cancellations mounted and aircraft remained parked at gates.

Thousands of passengers faced being stranded overnight. Edward Kargbo, 50, from West Chester, Pennsylvania, had been scheduled to take a 9 p.m. Ethiopian Airlines flight to Lomé, Togo. Instead, he planned to spend the night at the airport before a rescheduled flight at 6 a.m. on Saturday.

“I have to squat the night here,” he said. “I’m stranded.”

Louise Maher, 47, was also caught up in the disruption at Newark after her British Airways flight to London was caught up in the aviation meltdown.

“I might cry at some point but not yet,” she said.

US airlines will not be required to provide compensation to stranded passengers because the carriers were not responsible for the FAA system failures.

The only other nationwide ground stop since the September 11 attacks came in January 2023, when the FAA halted domestic departures for about 90 minutes.

Investors were already pricing in a financial hit to airlines. Shares of American Airlines, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines fell between 1% and 2% in after-hours trading, while JetBlue Airways dropped about 3%.

American Airlines said it was prioritizing flights to smaller cities outside its major hubs and international destinations to position aircraft and crews for a faster recovery.

World

US Treasury Chief Blames Commerce Dept for Failure in Nvidia Scandal

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks during the National Committee on US-China Relations 60th Anniversary Gala Dinner in New York City, US, November 10, 2026. (Reuters)
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks during the National Committee on US-China Relations 60th Anniversary Gala Dinner in New York City, US, November 10, 2026. (Reuters)
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US Treasury Chief Blames Commerce Dept for Failure in Nvidia Scandal

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks during the National Committee on US-China Relations 60th Anniversary Gala Dinner in New York City, US, November 10, 2026. (Reuters)
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks during the National Committee on US-China Relations 60th Anniversary Gala Dinner in New York City, US, November 10, 2026. (Reuters)

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Friday blamed the Commerce Department for failing to blacklist Megaspeed, the Singapore company at the center of a scandal that prompted Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang to resign.

Speaking on CNBC, Bessent said Treasury, the Defense Department, the US Trade Representative's office and the State Department had backed adding Megaspeed to the Washington's trade blacklist, "for months."

"But Commerce has the pen," Bessent said. "You will have to ask them about their internal processes."

He said he was "frustrated" because President Donald Trump "made it very clear that China should not receive any Nvidia chips above H100s."

"Any leakage is very frustrating because it hurts our great companies, and in the AI race gives the Chinese an advantage," he said.

The remarks are a rare public rebuke of one cabinet department by another. Commerce is led by Secretary Howard Lutnick.

Megaspeed is suspected of helping Chinese firms get around US export controls by buying Nvidia chips for its data centers in Southeast Asia and routing them to China.

The company reportedly traded more than $4 billion worth of Nvidia chips over two years.

Its former director Alice Huang was this week identified in US media as an alleged Chinese intelligence asset who had a relationship with Jensen Huang. The two are not related. Beijing has denied the spying allegations.

Jensen Huang acknowledged an extramarital affair in a November 8 letter to Nvidia employees that did not name the woman involved and resigned his position on Thursday.

Nvidia's board has said it will investigate, and three US Congress committee chairs have asked him to attend a closed-door briefing on November 18.

Bessent said coverage of the affair had focused too much on Huang's private life.

"The story thus far has been on Jensen Huang's personal foibles," he said. "The real story here should be: Did Nvidia know their client, and was there a robust effort at Nvidia to make sure that there was no leakage."

He questioned whether Nvidia had been selling to "what were obviously pass-through shell companies."

"I think it's important that anyone at the company there be held accountable for that," Bessent said.

He said there was "a lot of leakage in the system" and that the administration was "constantly working to close that down."