Senator Charles Pasqua of France has been given a one-year suspended prison sentence for corruption while he was interior minister in the 1990s.
A close aide of former President Jacques Chirac, Pasqua, 83, was convicted of embezzlement over the sales of police equipment abroad.
Pasqua was cleared of two other charges. He denied any wrongdoing.
Mr Chirac is to stand trial next year, accused of misuse of public funds when he was Mayor of Paris in the 1990s.
