This morning France wrote a dark page in its history: this Tuesday, for the first time, a former president of the Republic went to prison for corruption. This is the conservative Nicolas Sarkozy, a man who crossed red lines and now has to pay for it. He is also the first leader of a European Union country to end up behind bars.
The former president (2007-2012) left his Paris mansion, in the 16th arrondissement, this morning at 9:10 a.m., after saying goodbye to his family, holding hands with his current wife, the singer and model Carla Bruni. The two dressed in black, looking sad, walked with a firm but tired step to the car that was to take the politician to the La Santé prison, also in Paris (in the 14th arrondissement, in their case). In the area, summoned by Sarko’s eldest children, dozens of coreligionists had gathered who defend the right-winger’s innocence and demand his freedom. After kissing Bruni, the condemned man got into a car and left.
At ten in the morning he had to be at the prison. At 9:39 he was entering, rushing the margin, after a transfer escorted in a black car and followed by television motorcyclists, who broadcast the entire journey live, curiously strolling through some of the most emblematic places in Paris.
Salkozy was sentenced at the end of September to one for financing the electoral campaign that took him to the Elysee in 2007, in which he used money from the Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi. He will also have to pay a fine of 100,000 euros. He is believed guilty of having been part of an “association of evildoers” and having let his main collaborators negotiate with officials of the Gaddafi regime to obtain money for the 2007 presidential election campaign. He did not do it directly, mind you. He also escaped charges of passive corruption and concealment of embezzlement of public funds, which were examined in the same trial, with 11 other defendants.
Members of the French police, in front of La Santé prison in Paris, on October 21, 2025, waiting for Nicolas Sarkozy to arrive.
Immediate recourse
Sarkozy’s lawyers announced today that they will present a request for his release “very quickly.” His imprisonment “reinforces his determination and his rage to prove that he is innocent,” Christophe Ingrain, one of his lawyers, said today. “At ten o’clock he will be in the pretrial detention center,” but Sarkozy’s lawyers will request his release “very quickly,” since “one night in prison is too much,” declared Ingrain.
“Objectively there is no reason for the appeal court to reject this release, but there is legal uncertainty and we will face it,” said the lawyer, who announced that “there will be no preferential treatment” for him and that “his request will be examined within the usual period, which is one month.” There should be a response in two months at most.
In any case, the lawyer added Sarkozy will spend “between three weeks and a month in detention before the court rules” on his demand for release, which if he receives a positive response would allow him to spend Christmas at home and appear free at the appeal trial scheduled for March 2026.
During the time he will spend in La Santé, the former head of state will take the opportunity to “write about his experience, about the injustice of which he is a victim.” Two years after leaving the Elysée, Sarkozy tried to obtain judicial benefits from a senior magistrate, something that came to light through wiretapping to which he was subjected in another investigation. Apparently, he promised to use his influence to promote him in exchange for obtaining information that was under summary secrecy in another investigation against him. Now he says that, since then, the judges have sworn to him and that this sentence is the result of personal persecution.
Sarkozy was received last Friday by the current head of state, Emmanuel Macron, who considered that meeting “normal, from a human point of view”, a gesture with his predecessor. However, his gesture has raised some criticism in the country, as has the visit expected this morning from the Minister of Justice, Gérald Darmanin, who has acknowledged that he feels “very sorry” for the convicted man, whose collaborator he was.
