The former president, the first president in the country’s modern history to serve a sentence, is making his final journey before being imprisoned as he begins his five-year sentence for financing his 2007 election campaign with money from Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
Sarkozy arrived arm-in-arm with Carla Bruni at his final destination, walking about 20 minutes from his home, where a crowd of people had gathered to a “resounding applause” and chants such as, “Nicolas, Nicolas!”, while many sang the national anthem of France, the well-known “Massaliotide”.
BREAKING: Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy walks to prison
He was sentenced to five years after being found guilty of criminal conspiracy, but not guilty of receiving illegal campaign financing from the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi
— Sky News (@SkyNews)
The former president wrote today in a long message to X: “I want to say (to the French people), with unwavering conviction, that this morning it is not a former president of the Republic who is imprisoned, but an innocent man.”
Sarkozy, who was convicted last month, will become the first former French leader to be jailed since Nazi collaborator Field Marshal Philippe Petain after World War II.
The 70-year-old former president’s lawyers have already filed a request to release their client – who has appealed the verdict – once he is in prison. However, until the decision, it is assumed that he will stay for at least two months in the cell. His lawyers also said that Sarkozy will use his time in the cell to document his experience in prison.
Meeting with Macron
The former president (2007-2012) was received on Friday by President Emmanuel Macron, who described the meeting as “normal, on a human level”.
“I have always spoken very clearly about the independence of the judiciary in terms of my own role,” the French president said. “But it was normal, on a human level, to accept one of my predecessors in this context.”
Nicolas Sarkozy had declared at the end of September that A presidential pardon only applies to a final and enforceable conviction.
Sarkozy walks through the doors of the famous La Santé prison
Sarkozy will serve his sentence in the “Health” (La Santé) prison in Paris, under special conditions of detention, since he is prohibited from contact with other prisoners (that is, he will be in the isolation ward of the penitentiary), and he will not have the right to use a mobile phone. According to French media reports, the cell prepared for the former president is nine square meters and has a window and a television. Prisoners in this ward are only allowed one walk in the courtyard a day, which courtyard is smaller than the main one and also isolated.
Famous ex-prisoners
Various personalities have been detained in this particular prison in the past, such as the Venezuelan international terrorist Ilic Ramirez Sanchez, who is better known as Carlos the Jackal, while recently Jean-Luc Brunel, owner of a modeling agency and close associate of convicted sex crimes and pimping stockbroker Jeffrey Epstein, was imprisoned. Brunel was also found dead in his cell in 2022, while serving a sentence for raping minors.
The length of the former president’s stay in prison is unknown
According to reports in the French media, it has not been made clear how much of his sentence Sarkozy will serve in this particular cell, as according to the relevant provisions, once he crosses the prison threshold, he has the right to apply to serve the rest of his sentence under house arrest with a bracelet. However, as he had mentioned in his related statements in September: “If they absolutely want me to sleep in prison, I will sleep in prison – but with my head held high.”
The former president told La Tribune Dimanche newspaper on Sunday that he has already packed his bags and is feeling calm before the start of his sentence. He plans to spend his time in prison writing a book, the newspaper reported.
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As French media reports, because of his conviction, the former president was stripped of France’s highest distinction, the Legion of Honor.
A recent survey of more than 1,000 adults by polling firm Elabe found that six in 10 people living in France think Sarkozy’s prison sentence is “just”.
However, the former president is still popular on the French right.
His son, Louis Sarkozy, who writes for a far-right newspaper and is a mayoral candidate in southern France, on Saturday called on people to “come and show their support” for his father outside his home on Tuesday morning.
The president of the court that made the decision to convict Sarkozy of conspiracy has received threats on her life, prompting Macron to publicly describe such attacks as “unacceptable”.
