Former French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, has made history as the first ex-head of state in modern French history to be sent to prison, beginning a five-year jail term for allegedly conspiring to fund his 2007 election campaign with money from late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
Not since Philippe Pétain, the World War II collaborationist leader jailed for treason in 1945, has a former French leader been incarcerated.
Sarkozy, who governed France from 2007 to 2012, arrived at La Santé prison in Paris on Tuesday morning to begin his sentence.
He has appealed the ruling but will remain behind bars while awaiting the outcome. The 70-year-old former president will be held in a small isolation cell, a precaution due to the presence of dangerous inmates, including drug traffickers and convicted terrorists.
As Sarkozy left his villa in Paris’s affluent 16th district around 09:40 (07:40 GMT), more than a hundred supporters gathered, clapping and chanting “Nicolas!” while he held hands with his wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.
His son Louis, 28, had urged supporters to rally for his father, while another son, Pierre, appealed for a “message of love – nothing else, please.”
Shortly before entering prison, Sarkozy posted a defiant message on X, “I have no doubt. Truth will prevail. But how crushing the price will have been.”
He added, “With unwavering strength I tell [the French people] it is not a former president they are locking up this morning — it is an innocent man. Do not feel sorry for me because my wife and my children are by my side… but this morning I feel deep sorrow for a France humiliated by a will for revenge.”
His lawyer, Christophe Ingrain, confirmed after the former leader entered the facility that an appeal for his release had been filed.
“Nothing justifies his imprisonment,” Ingrain said. “He’ll be inside for at least three weeks or a month.”
Sarkozy has reportedly declined any preferential treatment, though he will stay in the isolation wing for safety reasons.
His 9–11 sq m (95–120 sq ft) cell is equipped with basic amenities, a toilet, shower, desk, small electric hob, and a television that costs €14 (£12) per month — along with the option to rent a small refrigerator.
He will be allowed family visits, letters, and phone calls, but will otherwise spend his time alone, permitted just one hour of daily exercise in a segregated courtyard.
“Conditions of detention in an isolation wing are pretty hard,” former La Santé deputy head Flavie Rault told BFMTV. “You are alone, all the time. The only contact you have is with prison staff. You never come across another detainee for security reasons and there’s a type of social isolation which makes life difficult.”
Before his incarceration, Sarkozy was received at the Élysée Palace by President Emmanuel Macron.
“It was normal that on a human level I should receive one of my predecessors in that context,” Macron told reporters.
Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin also announced he would visit Sarkozy at La Santé, saying, “I cannot be insensitive to a man’s distress,” and adding that the visit would ensure “his safety and the proper functioning of the jail.”
Sarkozy’s legal troubles stretch back over a decade. Last December, he wore an electronic monitoring tag after being convicted of attempting to bribe a magistrate for confidential information in another case.
Next month, France’s highest administrative court will deliver a verdict on his appeal against a six-month sentence in the Bygmalion affair, another campaign finance scandal.
Despite the mounting cases, Sarkozy remains defiant. In a recent interview with La Tribune, he declared, “I’m not afraid of prison. I’ll keep my head held high, including at the prison gates.”
The former president has consistently denied wrongdoing in the Libyan funding case, which accused him of receiving millions of euros from Gaddafi’s regime for his 2007 campaign.
While Sarkozy was cleared of personally accepting the funds, he was convicted of criminal association with close allies Brice Hortefeux and Claude Guéant, who met Gaddafi’s intelligence chief in 2005 through Franco-Lebanese middleman Ziad Tiakeddine — now deceased.
Although Sarkozy has filed an appeal and remains legally presumed innocent, the court ruled that he must begin serving time due to the “exceptional seriousness of the facts.”
He reportedly entered prison with two books, A Life of Jesus by Jean-Christian Petitfils and Alexandre Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo, the classic tale of a man wrongly imprisoned who seeks justice and redemption.
