France’s ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy became the first former head of an EU state to be jailed Tuesday, proclaiming his innocence as he entered a Paris prison.
France’s right-wing leader from 2007 to 2012 was found guilty last month of seeking to acquire funding from Moamer Kadhafi’s Libya for the campaign that saw him elected.
AFP journalists saw the 70-year-old — who has appealed the verdict — leave his home, and after a short drive flanked by police on motorbikes, enter the La Sante prison in the French capital.
“Welcome Sarkozy!”, “Sarkozy’s here,” AFP reporters heard convicts shouting from their cells.
In a defiant message posted on social media as he was being transferred, Sarkozy denied any wrongdoing.
“It is not a former president of the republic being jailed this morning, but an innocent man,” he said on X.
“I have no doubt. The truth will prevail.”
Sarkozy was handed a five-year jail term in September for criminal conspiracy over a plan for late Libyan dictator Kadhafi to fund his electoral campaign.
After his September 25 verdict, Sarkozy had said he would “sleep in prison — but with my head held high”.
Dozens of supporters and family members had stood outside the former president’s home from early Tuesday, some holding up framed portraits of him.
“Nicolas, Nicolas! Free Nicolas,” they shouted as he left his home, holding hands with his wife, singer Carla Bruni.
Earlier they had sung the French national anthem, as neighbours looked on from their balconies.
“This is truly a sad day for France and for democracy,” said Flora Amanou, 41.
– ‘At least three weeks’ –
Sarkozy’s lawyer Christophe Ingrain said a request had been immediately filed for Sarkozy’s release.
The Paris appeals court in theory has two months to decide whether to free him pending an appeals trial, but the delay is usually shorter.
“He will be inside for at least three weeks to a month,” Ingrain said.
Sarkozy is the first French leader to be incarcerated since Philippe Petain, the Nazi collaborationist head of state who was jailed after World War II.
He told Le Figaro newspaper he will be taking with him a biography of Jesus and a copy of “The Count of Monte Cristo”, a novel in which an innocent man is sentenced to jail but escapes to take revenge.
Sarkozy is likely to be held in a nine square metre (95 square foot) cell in the prison’s solitary confinement wing to avoid contact with other prisoners, prison staff told AFP.
In solitary confinement, prisoners are allowed out of their cells for one walk a day, alone, in a small yard. Sarkozy will also be allowed visits three times a week.
Sarkozy has faced a flurry of legal woes since losing his re-election bid in 2012.
He has also been convicted in two other cases.
In one, he served a sentence for graft — over seeking to secure favours from a judge — under house arrest while wearing an electronic ankle tag, which was removed after several months in May.
In another, France’s top court is to rule next month in a case in which he is accused of illegal campaign financing in 2012.
– ‘Normal, on a human level’ –
In the so-called “Libyan case”, prosecutors said his aides, acting in Sarkozy’s name, struck a deal with Kadhafi in 2005 to illegally fund his victorious presidential election bid two years later.
Investigators believe that in return, Kadhafi was promised help to restore his international image after Tripoli was blamed for the 1988 bombing of a passenger jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, and another over Niger in 1989, killing hundreds of passengers.
The court convicted him of criminal conspiracy over the plan.
But it did not conclude that Sarkozy received or used the funds for his campaign.
It acquitted him on charges of embezzling Libyan public funds, passive corruption and illicit financing of an electoral campaign.
Sarkozy had already been stripped of France’s highest distinction, his Legion of Honour, following the earlier graft conviction.
Six out of 10 people in France believe the prison sentence to be “fair”, according to a survey of more than 1,000 adults conducted by pollster Elabe.
But Sarkozy still enjoys support on the French right and has on occasion had private meetings with President Emmanuel Macron.
Macron welcomed Sarkozy to the Elysee Palace on Friday, telling the press this week: “It was normal, on a human level, for me to receive one of my predecessors in this context”.
