The date of his arrest will be defined this Monday, 13th. The former French president was sentenced to five years in prison for criminal conspiracy in a scheme to finance his victorious 2007 campaign with resources from Libya. Sarkozy, 70, maintains his innocence. He called the verdict “a scandal” and filed an appeal.
Sarkozy will be the first former president of modern France sentenced to serve time behind bars. Involved in several other legal cases, he was president of France from 2007 to 2012 and has been retired from politics for years, although he remains influential, especially among conservatives.
Why Sarkozy goes to prison
In a surprising decision, the Paris court ruled that the prison sentence, which would normally be suspended until the appeal is heard, be executed immediately. Sarkozy must be arrested “without delay”, according to the court, because of “the seriousness of the damage to public order caused by the crime”.
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Still, Sarkozy had 18 days from the decision to “organize his professional life” before being summoned by the National Financial Public Ministry to set a date for incarceration.
Sarkozy’s supporters criticized the decision, arguing that because he appealed, he is still considered innocent under French law.
The debate on immediate executions resurfaced following the sentencing of French radical right leader Marine Le Pen, in March, to five years of ineligibility for embezzlement of European Union resources – also with immediate effect, despite the appeal.
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Sarkozy’s case does not appear to be an exception in the French judicial system. The Ministry of Justice said that in 2024, 90% of adults convicted and sentenced to at least two years in prison were imprisoned immediately after sentencing.
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What was the reason for the conviction
The court concluded that Sarkozy, as a candidate and interior minister, used his position “to prepare corruption at the highest level” between 2005 and 2007, in order to finance his presidential campaign with resources from Libya, then governed by Muammar Gaddafi.
The judges stated that two of his close allies, Claude Guéant and Brice Hortefeux, held secret meetings in 2005 with Abdullah al-Senoussi, Gadhafi’s brother-in-law and head of intelligence, despite the fact that he had been “convicted of acts of terrorism committed mainly against French and European citizens.”
Al-Senoussi is considered the mastermind of the attacks on a Pan Am jumbo jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, and on a French plane over Niger the following year, causing hundreds of deaths. He was convicted and sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment by a Paris court in 1999 for the attack on French UTA Flight 772.
The court also said there was evidence that Sarkozy supported meetings between Guéant, then his chief of staff, and an intermediary capable of arranging secret financial deals.
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Why Sarkozy talks about framing
Sarkozy claims to be innocent and the victim of “a conspiracy” articulated by people linked to the Libyan government, including what he called the “Gaddafi clan”.
According to him, the accusations of illegal financing would be retaliation for having defended, as president of France, the overthrow of Gaddafi in 2011, during the Arab Spring.
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At the time, Sarkozy was one of the first Western leaders to support the military intervention in Libya, which ended with Gaddafi’s death and the end of his four-decade rule.
Furthermore, Sarkozy insists that the court acquitted him of three other charges, including passive corruption, illegal campaign financing and concealment of embezzlement of public funds. The court said there was no evidence that the money transferred from Libya to France was used in Sarkozy’s 2007 campaign and acknowledged that it was not used to serve his “direct personal enrichment.”
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What’s next
For security reasons, Sarkozy must serve his sentence in conditions reserved for high-profile prisoners, possibly in the so-called “VIP area” of La Santé prison, the only one within Paris, where some of the country’s most notorious criminals have been held.
Once behind bars, Sarkozy will be able to petition the appeal court for release. Judges will then have up to two months to process the request. An appeal trial is expected to take place at a later date, possibly next spring.
French businessman Pierre Botton, a friend of Sarkozy, spent almost four years in prison in two separate cases, including from 2020 to 2022 in La Santé. He described the incarceration as a “violent” shock “for anyone.”
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According to Botton, Sarkozy must spend a week in a screening ward before being transferred to the “vulnerable personalities area”, where he will be alone in a cell equipped with a shower, toilet, heater, refrigerator and TV – and will have the right to a paid telephone for external contact.
