Nicolas Sarkozy, who previously served as France’s president from 2007 to 2012, has made history as the first former French head of state to be sent to prison. He is beginning a five-year jail term for conspiring to fund his election campaign using money from the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
This unprecedented incarceration marks a significant moment in French political history, with only Philippe Pétain, a Nazi collaborator, having been imprisoned after his term as a national leader in 1945.
Sarkozy has lodged an appeal against his sentence and will be held in a cell within the isolation wing of La Santé prison. Supporters gathered outside his Paris residence, cheering and showing their support as he left with his wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.
Despite the public display of support, Sarkozy maintains his innocence, expressing sorrow for what he calls a “humiliated France” and asserting that an “innocent man” is being imprisoned. His lawyer has already filed a request for his release, stating that his imprisonment is unjustified and that he expects him to serve at least three to four weeks.
The former president’s cell, reportedly on the top floor of the isolation wing, is expected to be around 9-11 square meters. While he will have basic amenities like a toilet, shower, desk, and a small television, he will be largely isolated, with only one hour of exercise permitted daily, alone in a segregated courtyard.
The situation has garnered national attention, with current President Emmanuel Macron acknowledging the human aspect and the public’s reaction to a former leader being jailed, while stressing his neutrality on judicial decisions.
Sarkozy, who has faced various legal challenges since leaving office, has chosen to bring two books with him: a biography of Jesus and Alexandre Dumas’s “The Count of Monte Cristo,” a tale of wrongful imprisonment and eventual retribution.
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