Nicolas Sarkozy has become the first French ex-president to go to jail, as he starts a five-year sentence for conspiring to fund his election campaign with money from late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
Not since World War Two Nazi collaborationist leader Philippe Pétain was jailed for treason in 1945 has any French ex-leader gone behind bars.
Sarkozy, who was president from 2007-2012, has appealed against his jail term at La Santé prison, where he will occupy a cell roughly measuring 9 sq m (95 sq ft) in the jail’s isolation wing.
More than 100 people applauded Sarkozy as he left his villa in the exclusive 16th district of Paris, holding his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy by the hand.
His son Louis, 28, had appealed to supporters for a show of support, while another son, Pierre, called for a message of love – “nothing else, please”.
Nicolas Sarkozy, 70, was driven through the entrance of the notorious 19th-Century prison in the Montparnasse district south of the River Seine at 09:40 (07:40 GMT), while dozens of police officers cordoned off most of the surrounding streets.
He continues to protest his innocence in the highly controversial Libyan money affair and posted a message on X as he was driven to the jail, saying “I have no doubt.
Truth will prevail.
But how crushing the price will have been”.
“With unwavering strength I tell [the French people] it is not a former president they are locking up this morning – it is an innocent man,” he wrote.
“Do not feel sorry for me because my wife and my children are by my side… but this morning I feel deep sorrow for a France humiliated by a will for revenge.”
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