Sarkozy becomes the first French president to be imprisoned since World War II
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy began serving a five-year prison sentence on Tuesday at La Sante prison in Paris, after being convicted of conspiring to solicit funds from Libya to finance his election campaign.
Sarkozy is the first former French president to be imprisoned since World War II, marking a turning point in the country’s political history.
Sarkozy, a conservative, served as president from 2007 to 2012, marking the first time since Marshal Philippe Pétain’s post-World War II presidency that a former French president had been imprisoned on criminal charges.
This ruling came after years of legal battles surrounding allegations that Sarkozy’s 2007 campaign received massive funding from the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who was ousted and killed during the Arab Spring.
Although Sarkozy was convicted of conspiring with his aides to carry out these violations, the court acquitted him of personally receiving the funds or using them for private purposes.
For his part, Sarkozy has consistently denied any wrongdoing, viewing the case as politically motivated and arguing that the judiciary is seeking to destroy his reputation.
Although he appealed the ruling, the Paris court ordered the immediate execution of the sentence, an unprecedented decision, given the seriousness of the damage caused by the act to public order.
Sarkozy is also under arrest in a separate corruption case involving an attempt to obtain confidential information from a judge in exchange for job favors, and is currently serving his sentence under electronic monitoring via an ankle bracelet.
Sarkozy is expected to serve his prison term in an isolation unit, where prisoners are housed in solitary confinement and are kept separate from others for security reasons.
The cells are between 9 and 12 square meters in size and have been renovated, including private bathrooms.
He will have access to a television for a monthly fee of around 14 euros, as well as a landline telephone.
In a statement to Le Figaro, Sarkozy revealed that he would take three books with him during his first week in prison, including Alexandre Dumas’s novel “The Count of Monte Cristo,” which tells the story of a man wrongfully imprisoned who plots revenge against those who betrayed him.
This ruling reflects a shift in France’s policy toward high-level crimes, as previous governments, particularly in the 1990s and early 2000s, avoided imprisoning some convicted politicians.
In recent years, the French judiciary has increasingly relied on immediate enforcement orders of sentences, even while appeals are pending, to combat impunity.
Despite protests from Sarkozy’s political allies and the far right against the verdict, an opinion poll conducted by Elabe for BFM TV showed that 58% of French people consider the sentence fair, and 61% support the decision to begin serving the sentence without waiting for the outcome of the appeal.
