Nicolas Sarkozy has become the first former French president to go to prison, beginning a five-year sentence on charges of conspiring to finance his election campaign with money from the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
Since World War II, Nazi collaborator leader Philippe Pétain was imprisoned for treason in 1945, no previous French leader has gone behind bars.
Sarkozy, who served as president from 2007 to 2012, has resumed his prison sentence at La Santé prison, where he will occupy a cell measuring about 9 square meters (95 square feet) in the prison’s isolation ward.
More than 100 people stood outside his villa in the exclusive 16th arrondissement of Paris, after his son Louis, 28, called on his supporters to show support.
Another son, Pierre, called for a love letter – “Nothing else please.”
Nicolas Sarkozy (70 years old) arrived at the entrance of the notorious prison dating back to the nineteenth century in the Montparnasse region, south of the Seine River, at 09.40 (07.40 GMT) amid tight security measures.
He continues to protest his innocence in the highly controversial Libyan money case and posted a message on X while being taken to prison saying “I have no doubt. The truth will prevail. But how high the price will be.”
“With unwavering force I say [the French people] He wrote: “It is not a former president who is being detained this morning, it is an innocent man. Do not feel sorry for me because my wife and children are by my side… But this morning I feel deep sadness for a France humiliated by the desire for revenge.”
Sarkozy said he did not want special treatment in La Santé prison, even though he was placed in the isolation section for his safety because other prisoners are notorious drug traffickers or convicted of terrorist crimes.
Nicolas Sarkozy maintained his innocence and filed an appeal [Reuters]
Inside his cell he will have a toilet, shower, desk and small television. He will be allowed one hour a day to exercise on his own.
At the end of last week, President Emmanuel Macron received him at the Elysee Palace, and he told reporters on Monday, “It was natural on a human level for me to receive one of my predecessors in this context.”
In another measure of official support for the former president, Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin said that he would go to visit him in prison as part of his role in ensuring Sarkozy’s safety and the proper functioning of the prison.
He added: “I cannot be insensitive to the man’s plight.”
Before arriving at La Santé prison, Sarkozy gave a series of media interviews, telling the Tribune: “I am not afraid of prison. I will keep my head up, even at the prison gates.”
Sarkozy has always denied any wrongdoing in a case related to allegations that his 2007 presidential campaign was financed with millions of euros from Libyan funds.
The former center-right leader was acquitted of receiving the money personally, but was found guilty of criminal association with two of his close aides, Brice Hortevaux and Claude Guéant, for their role in secret campaign financing from Libyans.
The two men held talks with Gaddafi’s intelligence chief and his son-in-law in 2005, in a meeting arranged by a French-Lebanese mediator named Ziad Tiqadeddine, who died in Lebanon shortly before Sarkozy’s conviction.
While he has filed an appeal, Sarkozy is still considered innocent, but has been told that he must go to prison in light of the “exceptional gravity of the facts.”
Sarkozy said he would take two books with him to prison, one of which is “The Life of Jesus” and “The Count of Monte Cristo,” which tells the story of a man who was unjustly imprisoned and then escaped to take revenge on prosecutors.