enters La Santé prison to serve his 5-year sentence

Nicolas Sarkozysentenced to five years in prison for illegally financing the campaign that brought him to the Elysée in 2007 with money from the eccentric Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi, is already in prison. La Santé prisonwhere he will fulfill the dubious honor of being the first head of the French State since the establishment of the republican regime to be imprisoned.

The former president of the French Republic (2007-2012) left his home, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, a few minutes after 9:00 a.m. this Tuesday, holding his wife’s hand. Carla Bruni. Before getting into the car, he greeted and thanked the people who had joined him. gathered to applaud him and convey their support.

The vehicle in which Sarkozy, who did not make any statement, was taken to prison was escorted by a platoon of police motorcycles and journalists and has crossed some of the most popular areas of Paris. A few minutes later the convoy reached the prison complex.

“It is not a former president of the Republic who is being imprisoned this morning, but an innocent man,” Sarkozy said in a message posted on his X account as he headed to prison. “I will continue to denounce this judicial scandalit is way of the cross that I have suffered for more than ten years (…) The truth will triumph, but the price to pay will be devastating,” he predicted.

The former president was considered guilty of “illicit association” for having allowed “his followers” to seek illegal financing in the Libyan regime. According to the court, it is “events of exceptional gravity whose nature would alter the confidence of citizens in those who represent them”.

The sentence also imposed on Sarkozy a fine of 100,000 euros and deprived him of civil and civic rights for five years, a period for which his ineligibility was established. Although the sentence is not final, since he has presented appealhad to go to prison after the court added “provisional execution.”

According to the newspaper Le Monde, the former French president’s lawyers will ask for the immediate release of their client. The court will have two months to decide the appeal and the future of the former conservative leader.

Sarkozy, however, is not the first French head of state to be condemned: that dishonor belongs to the deceased Jacques Chirac (President of the Republic between 1995 and 2007), who received a two-year prison sentence for diverting public funds. Sick, he did not attend his trial, he did not appeal and, evidently, he did not spend a single night behind bars.