Nicolas Sarkozy, former president of France, enters prison to serve sentence for illicit association

FRANCE.- The former French President Nicolas Sarkozy He entered the Parisian prison this Tuesday Health for the five-year sentence imposed for financing the electoral campaign that led him to Elysée in 2007 with money from the Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi, which makes him the first former French head of state to enter prison.

Sarkozy arrived at the Paris prison, located in the 14th districtescorted in a black car and followed by television motorcyclists who broadcast the journey live from their home in the 16th district. His entry occurred around 9:39 local time amidst a strong security device.

Sarkozy heading to La Santé prison

“Welcome Sarkozy!”, “Sarkozy is here!” shouted some of those present upon the arrival of the former president of France from 2007 to 2012 at the old Parisian prison, while other people asked: “Carla, where are you?”, alluding to the former president’s wife.

His imprisonment caused an electroshock in a part of French society. Various national and foreign media imprisonment followedseveral television stations even broadcast the former boss’s journey from his home live.

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 pic.twitter.com/A2dWdxBnTa

— Sky News (@SkyNews) October 21, 2025

Sarkozy left around 9:10 local time hand in hand with his wife, Carla Bruniand in the company of his children and brothers from his home, where several dozen people gathered to show support for the former head of state and applauded him after singing the Marseillaise, the French anthem.

Just before heading to La Santé, the former president published a message on his social networks: “As I prepare to cross the walls of La Santé, my thoughts are with the French people.”

“I want to tell you with the unwavering strength that characterizes me that it is not a former president of the Republic who is being imprisoned this morning, but an innocent man. I will continue to denounce this judicial scandal, this ordeal that I have suffered for more than ten years,” he wrote, before adding: “The truth will triumph,” but the “price to pay will be devastating.”

Lawyers will seek to free him “quickly”

Sarkozy’s lawyers, who will become the first former president in the history of the French Republic and the European Union to go to prison, announced today that they will present a request for his release “very quickly” because “one night in prison is too many.”

His imprisonment “strengthens his determination and his rage to prove that he is innocent,” Christophe Ingrain, one of his lawyers, who accompanied him on the car ride to the prison, told BFMTV television today.

“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.”

In any case, the lawyer added that 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 in the appeal trial scheduled for March 2026. During the time he will spend in La Santé, the former head of state intends to take the opportunity to “write about his experience, about the injustice of which “He is a victim.”

On September 25, the former head of state was sentenced to five years in prison for having been part of an “association of evildoers” and for having allowed his main collaborators to negotiate with officials of the Gaddafi regime to obtain money for the 2007 presidential election campaign.

READ: Sarkozy, convicted of criminal conspiracy to finance his 2007 campaign

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