France’s ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy heads to prison after Gaddafi funding conviction
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy is set to begin serving a prison sentence on Tuesday after being convicted of criminal conspiracy linked to alleged Libyan financing of his 2007 presidential campaign, a historic verdict that makes him the first former head of state from an EU nation to serve jail time.
DAILY POST had reported that Sarkozy, who governed France from 2007 to 2012, was found guilty in September by the Paris Tribunal of conspiring with aides to solicit millions of euros from the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to fund his election victory.
Despite maintaining his innocence and denouncing the judgment as “a deep injustice,” Sarkozy is expected to be confined at La Santé Prison in Paris, a facility that has held some of France’s most notorious inmates.
“If they insist that I sleep in prison, I will sleep in prison, but with my head held high,” Sarkozy told reporters after the verdict on September 25, 2025.
The 70-year-old politician will be the first French leader to be jailed since Philippe Pétain, the head of France’s Nazi-collaborationist Vichy regime, was imprisoned after World War II.
Prison sources told reporters that Sarkozy would likely be kept in a nine-square-metre solitary cell to avoid contact with other inmates and potential security breaches, including illicit photos.
Judge Nathalie Gavarino, who presided over the case, described the offences as being of “exceptional gravity”, ordering immediate incarceration even as Sarkozy’s legal team filed an appeal.
His lawyers are, however, expected to petition for his release once he is admitted to the facility.
Under French law, Sarkozy’s legal team could request his release pending appeal, either under judicial supervision or house arrest with an electronic ankle monitor.
Until a ruling is made, he will remain in solitary confinement, permitted only a single daily walk in a restricted yard.
The former president’s conviction adds to a growing list of legal battles since leaving office in 2012.
Earlier this year, he completed a corruption sentence served under house arrest with an ankle tag.
In the current “Libyan case,” prosecutors alleged that Sarkozy’s campaign received illegal cash transfers from Gaddafi’s regime through intermediaries in 2005.
Investigators claimed the funds were exchanged for promises to help rehabilitate Libya’s international image following the Lockerbie and Niger air disasters of the late 1980s.
Although the court did not find enough evidence that Sarkozy personally received or spent the funds, it ruled that he played a central role in the conspiracy that facilitated the illegal funding.
He was, however, acquitted of separate charges of embezzlement, corruption, and illicit campaign financing.
Following the ruling, Sarkozy was stripped of France’s highest national honour, the Legion of Honour.
A survey by pollster Elabe showed that 60% of French citizens consider the prison sentence justified.
Still, Sarkozy retains strong backing within France’s conservative circles. His son, Louis Sarkozy, urged supporters to gather outside the family home on Tuesday morning to show solidarity, describing his father as a “victim of political persecution.”
Meanwhile, Judge Gavarino has reportedly received death threats since delivering the verdict, prompting President Emmanuel Macron to condemn the harassment as “unacceptable.”
La Santé Prison, where Sarkozy is expected to serve his sentence, has previously housed high-profile inmates, including Venezuelan militant Carlos the Jackal and disgraced model agent Jean-Luc Brunel, a known associate of Jeffrey Epstein who was found dead in his cell in 2022.
