Nicolas Sarkozy starts prison sentence over Libya funding scandal with defiant message

Former French president launches immediate appeal as he begins five-year term

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy insisted he was “innocent” as he was escorted to prison on Tuesday following his conviction over a scheme to acquire Libyan funding for his presidential run in 2007.

Mr Sarkozy, 70, becomes the first former head of an EU country to serve time behind bars. His lawyers filed an immediate motion for his release as he denounced last month's verdict as an “injustice”. He is unlikely to serve the full five-year sentence.

“It is not a former president of the republic being jailed this morning, but an innocent man,” he said on X. “I have no doubt. The truth will prevail.”

He walked out of his home hand-in-hand with his singer wife, Carla Bruni, and joined his children and grandchildren outside.

“Nicolas, Nicolas! Free Nicolas,” shouted a crowd who gathered in the road outside to show their support, some holding up framed portraits of him. They sang the French national anthem, as neighbours looked on from their balconies.

He left in a car escorted by police on motorcycles for La Sante prison in Paris, where he is being held.

Dozens of people gather near the residence of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy as he leaves to enter prison in Paris. EPA

Criminal conspiracy

Mr Sarkozy, France's right-wing leader from 2007 to 2012, was sentenced to five years in jail in September for criminal conspiracy over a plan for late Libyan dictator Colonel Muammar Qaddafi to fund his electoral campaign.

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

Under the ruling, the 70-year-old was only be able to file a request for release to the appeals court once he was behind bars. Judges have up to two months to process it.

Prosecutors said his aides, acting in Mr Sarkozy's name, struck a deal with Qaddafi in 2005 to illegally fund his victorious presidential election bid two years later.

Investigators believe that in return, Qaddafi 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.

But the court's ruling did not follow the prosecutors' conclusion that Mr 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.

Nicolas Sarkozy arrives by car at La Sante Prison in Paris. EPA

Solitary

He has told Le Figaro newspaper that he will be taking a biography of Jesus and a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo, a novel about an innocent man who is jailed but escapes to take revenge. He said he intended to take 10 family photos, which he is allowed to bring.

He is likely to be held in a nine square metre cell in the prison's solitary confinement wing to avoid contact with other prisoners or them taking pictures of him.

In solitary confinement, prisoners are allowed out of their cells for one walk a day, alone, in a small yard. Mr Sarkozy will also be allowed visits three times a week.

His lawyer, Christophe Ingrain, said on BFM TV that incarceration “strengthens his determination, it strengthens his rage to prove that he is innocent”.

Mr Sarkozy is planning to write a book about his prison experience, he said.

Convictions

Mr Sarkozy captured the electorate’s imagination and won the presidency in 2007 by bringing in a new political language that projected a toughness on law and order and immigration. He was soon criticised for celebrating his presidential victory with CEOs and entertainment stars and escaping for a few days on a billionaire's yacht.

Five years later, a deeply unpopular Mr Sarkozy lost his re-election bit against a backdrop of record public debt and growing unemployment.

He has faced a flurry of legal woes since losing re-election 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. He was stripped of France's highest distinction, his Legion of Honour, following the graft conviction.

His jailing comes at a time of extended political turmoil in France ever since President Emmanuel Macron called snap elections last year that led to a deeply divided parliament. Four different governments have come and gone since, with the latest led by Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu on fragile ground despite surviving no-confidence votes last week.

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

Mr Macron welcomed Mr Sarkozy to the Elysee Palace on Friday, a government source said, a decision he defended on Monday. “It was normal, on a human level, for me to receive one of my predecessors in this context,” Mr Macron said.