Sarkozy went to prison for campaign financing

Nicolas Sarkozy will become the first former French president to go to prison after he was sentenced to five years in prison for conspiring to fund his election campaign by late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

No former French leader has gone to prison since World War II Nazi allied leader Philippe Pétain was jailed for treason in 1945.

Sarkozy, who was president from 2007-2012, has appealed against his imprisonment at La Sante prison, where he will occupy a cell measuring approximately 9 square meters (95 square feet) in the prison’s isolation wing.

More than 100 people lined up outside the prison after his son Louis, 28, called on supporters to show their support.

Another son, Pierre, asked for a message of love – “nothing else, please”.

Nicolas Sarkozy, 70, was due to arrive at the notorious 19th-century prison in the Montparnasse district south of the Seine River at 10:00 (08:00 GMT). He continues to protest his innocence in the highly controversial Libyan money case.

Sarkozy has said that other prisoners do not want special treatment at the notorious La Sante prison, although they are kept in isolation for their own safety because they are notorious drug dealers or have been convicted of terrorist offences.

Apart from Philippe Pétain, King Louis XVI was the only former French head of state imprisoned before his execution in January 1793.

His cell will have a toilet, shower, desk and small TV. He will be given one hour a day for self-exercise.

He was welcomed at the Elysee Palace last weekend by President Emmanuel Macron, who told reporters on Monday that “it is normal for me on a human level to find one of my predecessors in that respect”.

In another measure of official support for the former president, Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin said he would visit Sarkozy in prison as part of his role in ensuring Sarkozy’s safety and the proper functioning of the prison.

“I cannot be insensitive to human suffering,” he added.

Before arriving at La Sante prison, Sarkozy gave a series of media interviews and told La Tribune: “I am not afraid of prison. I will hold my head high with the prison gate.”

Sarkozy has always denied any wrongdoing in the case where his 2007 presidential campaign was allegedly funded with millions of euros in Libyan cash.

The former center-right leader was cleared of receiving the money personally but convicted of having criminal ties to two close associates, Brice Hortefeux and Claude Gwent, to talk to Libya about the financing of the covert campaign.

The two held talks with Gaddafi’s intelligence chief and brother-in-law in 2005, in a meeting organized by a Franco-Lebanese mediator named Ziad Tiakeddine, who died in Lebanon shortly before Sarkozy was convicted.

As he has lodged an appeal, Sarkozy is still presumed innocent but has been told he must serve prison time given the “exceptional gravity of the facts”.

Sarkozy said he would take two books with him to prison, The Life of Jesus and The Count of Monte Cristo, the story of a wrongfully imprisoned man who escapes to avenge his accusers.