The prosecutor said 18 months of the sentence should be suspended, and that Richard should be barred from working in the public service for five years.

Richard has denied the allegations, saying he was doing his job and only played a secondary role in the arbitration process in which Tapie was awarded 403 million euros (£344 million) in the state-funded settlement.

Tapie is locked in a fight over the sale of his stake in sportswear firm Adidas in 1993 to Credit Lyonnais, then government-owned, and the compensation he won over the transaction 15 years later.

Richard is accused of complicity over the disputed payment. He was working as chief of staff to then-finance minister Christine Lagarde when it was made.

The prosecutor is also seeking a five-year jail term for Tapie.

(Reporting by Emmanuel Jarry, Writing by Richard Lough and Bate Felix, Editing by Catherine Evans and John Stonestreet)