Ex-French president Sarkozy starts 5-year prison sentence over funds from Gaddafi scandal

Sarkozy to be held in isolation, will get 3 visits a week, prison officials say; supporters gather outside former leader’s home, as he maintains his innocence in affair

PARIS, France (AFP) — Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy on Tuesday entered a Paris jail where he will be incarcerated over seeking to acquire Libyan funding for his 2007 presidential run.

“Welcome Sarkozy!” “Sarkozy’s here,” AFP reporters heard convicts shouting from their cells as he arrived.

Earlier, he walked out of his home hand in hand with his singer wife, Carla Bruni, and left in a car escorted by police on motorbikes.

“Nicolas, Nicolas! Free Nicolas,” shouted a crowd that gathered in the road outside to show support.

Sarkozy, France’s right-wing leader from 2007 to 2012, is to become the first former head of an EU country to serve time behind bars.

He was handed a five-year jail term in September for criminal conspiracy over a plan for late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi to fund his electoral campaign.

The 70-year-old, who has appealed the verdict and denounced an “injustice,” was incarcerated in La Sante prison in Paris.

“If they absolutely want me to sleep in prison, I will sleep in prison — but with my head held high,” he told the press after his September 25 verdict.

“This is truly a sad day for France and for democracy. This trial is based on nothing,” said Flora Amanou, 41, who said she had closely followed both of Sarkozy’s presidential campaigns.

Supporters of France’s former president Nicolas Sarkozy gather outside his residence ahead of his departure to La Sante prison for incarceration on a five-year prison sentence, after being convicted of criminal conspiracy over a plan for late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi to fund his 2007 electoral campaign, in Paris, on October 21, 2025. (JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP)

Sarkozy will be the first French leader to be incarcerated since Philippe Petain, the Nazi collaborationist head of state who was jailed after World War II.

He has told Le Figaro newspaper he will be taking a biography of Jesus and a copy of “The Count of Monte Cristo,” a novel in which an innocent man is sentenced to jail but escapes to take revenge.

Dozens of supporters had stood outside the former president’s home from early Tuesday, some holding up framed portraits of him.

They sang the French national anthem, as neighbors looked on from their balconies.

When the ex-president entered the jail, AFP reporters heard convicts shouting from their cells, convicts inside were heard shouting “Welcome Sarkozy!” and “Sarkozy’s here.”

Ex-president said to face solitary confinement

Sarkozy is likely to be held in a nine square meter (95 square foot) cell in the prison’s solitary confinement wing, prison staff told AFP.

Inside the cell will be a toilet, shower, desk, and TV, and he will be allowed an hour of exercise a day, according to the BBC.

Sarkozy will also be allowed visits thrice a week.

France’s former president Nicolas Sarkozy hugs his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy as he leaves his residence to present himself to La Sante Prison for incarceration on a five-year prison sentence. (JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP)

It is unclear how long Sarkozy will remain in jail.

Presiding judge Nathalie Gavarino said during sentencing that the offenses were of “exceptional gravity,” and therefore ordered Sarkozy to be jailed even if he filed an appeal.

But Sarkozy’s lawyers are expected to request his release as soon as he sets foot inside the jail, and the appeals court has two months to examine it.

Sarkozy has faced a flurry of legal woes since losing reelection in 2012.

He has been convicted in two separate trials. In one, he served a graft sentence with an electronic ankle tag, which was removed after several months in May.

In the so-called “Libyan case,” prosecutors said his aides, acting in Sarkozy’s name, struck a deal with Gaddafi in 2005 to illegally fund his victorious presidential election bid two years later.

Investigators believe that in return, Gaddafi was promised help to restore his international image after Tripoli was blamed for the 1988 bombing of a passenger jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, and another over Niger in 1989, killing hundreds of passengers.

In this December 2007 file photo, then French president Nicolas Sarkozy, left, greets Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi upon his arrival at the Elysee Palace, in Paris. (AP Photo/Francois Mori, File)

But the court’s ruling did not follow the prosecutors’ conclusion that Sarkozy received or used the funds for his campaign.

It acquitted him on charges of embezzling Libyan public funds, passive corruption and illicit financing of an electoral campaign.

Majority of French believe sentence is ‘fair’

Sarkozy was stripped of France’s highest distinction, his Legion of Honor, following the graft conviction.

Six out of 10 people in France believe the prison sentence to be “fair,” according to a survey of more than 1,000 adults conducted by pollster Elabe.

But Sarkozy still enjoys support on the French right and has on occasion had private meetings with President Emmanuel Macron.

Macron welcomed Sarkozy to the Elysee Palace on Friday, a government source said, a decision the French president defended on Monday.

“It was normal, on a human level, for me to receive one of my predecessors in this context,” Macron said.

Some notorious inmates have spent time at La Sante, including Venezuelan militant Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, also known as Carlos the Jackal, who has since been moved.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.