French ex-president Sarkozy to go to prison this month

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Photo / Julien De Rosa, AFP

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy will serve jail time at a Paris prison from October 21, sources say, after a court last month sentenced him to five years behind bars for criminal conspiracy.

The 70-year-old, who will be the first French postwar leader and the first former head of a European Union country to go to jail, will serve time at the La Sante prison in Paris, they said.

Sarkozy, France’s leader from 2007 to 2012, was convicted in late September over a scheme for late Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi to fund his 2007 presidential run.

Extra security measures are expected to ensure his safety in prison, with Sarkozy possibly placed in a unit for vulnerable prisoners or held in solitary confinement.

On Monday, he arrived at the financial prosecutor’s office in Paris to learn the details of his upcoming incarceration.

He arrived in a car with tinted windows, then left again three-quarters of an hour later.

Sarkozy has denied the charges and appealed against his conviction.

The former President immediately appealed his conviction in September and a new trial is expected in the coming months.

The Paris appeals court has up to 18 months to organise it.

Once jailed, his lawyers can petition the appeals court for his release but he will remain in custody unless it decides otherwise.

‘Exceptional gravity’

During the trial, prosecutors argued Sarkozy and his aides, acting with his authority and in his name, struck a deal with Kadhafi in 2005 to illegally fund his victorious French presidential election bid two years later.

Investigators believe that in return, Kadhafi was promised help to restore his international image after the West blamed Tripoli for bombing a plane in 1988 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and another over Niger in 1989, killing hundreds of passengers.

Presiding Judge Nathalie Gavarino said the offences were of “exceptional gravity” and therefore ordered that Sarkozy actually be incarcerated.

The court’s ruling found Sarkozy was guilty of criminal conspiracy.

But it did not follow the conclusion of prosecutors that he was the beneficiary of the illegal campaign financing.

He was acquitted on separate charges of embezzling Libyan public funds, passive corruption and illicit financing of an electoral campaign.

Legal woes

Sarkozy has faced a litany of legal problems since his mandate ended.

The country’s top court last year upheld his conviction and one-year jail sentence for graft over attempting in 2014 to secure favours from a judge.

He served three months of that time with an electronic tag earlier this year, before being granted conditional release.

Separately, he has received a one-year jail term – six months in prison with another six months suspended – for illegal financing of his 2012 campaign.

He has filed a final appeal with France’s top court, which is to issue its ruling late next month.

Sarkozy has also faced repercussions beyond the courtroom, including losing his Legion of Honour – France’s highest distinction – following the graft conviction.

Legal woes aside, the man who styled himself as the “hyper-president” while in office, still enjoys considerable influence and popularity on the right of French politics and has been known to regularly meet President Emmanuel Macron.

-Agence France-Presse