The Pathfinder
Tuesday October 21, 2025
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Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was today sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for corruption.
The former president said, ‘I’m not afraid of prison. I’ll keep my head held high, including at the prison gates,’ Sarkozy told La Tribune Dimanche newspaper ahead of his incarceration.
Nicolas Sarkozy waved to crowds of supporters as he entered prison this morning to begin his five-year sentence after sharing an emotional goodbye with his wife, Carla Bruni.
The former French president, 70, arrived at La Santé prison on Tuesday morning, with reporters hearing convicts shouting from their cells, ‘Welcome Sarkozy!’ and ‘Sarkozy’s here.’
Sarkozy’s conviction caps years of legal battles over allegations that his 2007 campaign took millions in cash from Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who was later overthrown and killed during the Arab Spring uprisings.
Sarkozy will be facing a ‘tough time’ in Paris’s La Santé prison and is likely to be held in a nine-square-meter cell in the prison’s isolation wing. His lawyer, Jean-Michel Darrois, said he has ‘some pullovers, as prisons can be cold, and some earplugs, as there could also be a lot of noise. Isolation like what he’s going to go through is painful, but he got himself prepared.’
Speaking outside the Paris prison moments after the former French president entered, Sarkozy’s lawyers revealed his legal team has already lodged a request for parole, with their mission being to take him out ‘as quickly as possible.’
More than 100 people stood outside the jail this morning after his son Louis, 28, called on supporters to rally in support of his father in the high-end Paris neighborhood where the former French president lives. Another son, Pierre, called for a message of love—‘nothingelse, please.’
As Sarkozy prepared to begin his prison term, he posted a message on social media repeating his claims that he is an ‘innocent man’ and said he feels a ‘deep sorrow’ for France.
‘As I prepare to cross the walls of La Santé prison, my thoughts go out to the French people of all walks of life and opinions,’ he said.
‘I want to tell them with my unwavering strength that it is not a former President of the Republic who is being locked up this morning; it is an innocent person.’
He added, ‘I feel deep sorrow for France, which finds itself humiliated by the expression of a vengeance that has taken hatred to an unprecedented level. I have no doubt. The truth will triumph. But the price to pay will have been crushing.’
Supporters chanted ‘Nicolas, Nicolas’ as he left his home and stepped into the car that would take him to jail after sharing a final kiss with Bruni and waving goodbye to the crowds.
Following the massive gathering of support for his father this morning, Louis took to X to thank those who appeared outside the prison.
‘The images of that morning are forever etched in his mind, as they are in ours,’ he wrote.
‘No one can imagine how deeply your presence inhabits and sustains us. Our father is an innocent man.’
Sebastien Cauwel, who heads up the high-profile La Santé prison in Paris, told RTL Radio, ‘He will be able to access the exercise yard, on his own, twice a day; he will have access to an activities room while on his own, and he will be alone when inside his prison cell.’
Sarkozy had told Le Figaro he would take three books for his first week behind bars, including Alexandre Dumas’ ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’—the story of a man unjustly imprisoned who plots his revenge against those who betrayed him.
At the end of last week he was received at the Élysée Palace by President Emmanuel Macron, who told reporters on Monday, ‘It was normal that on a human level I should receive one of my predecessors in that context.’
In a further measure of official support for the ex-president, Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin said he would go to visit him in prison as part of his role in ensuring Sarkozy’s safety and the proper functioning of the jail.
‘I cannot be insensitive to a man’s distress,’ he added.
The incarceration makes him the first former French leader to be jailed since Nazi collaborator Marshal Philippe Petain after World War Two.
While Sarkozy was found guilty of conspiring with close aides to orchestrate the scheme in 2007, he was acquitted of personally receiving or using the funds.
He has consistently denied wrongdoing and called the case politically motivated, saying judges were seeking to humiliate him.
He has appealed, but the nature of his sentence means he must go to jail as his appeal process plays out.
The former president has already been convicted in a separate corruption case, in which he was found guilty of trying to obtain confidential information from a judge in return for career favors, and is serving that sentence by wearing an electronic tag around the ankle.
Sarkozy’s isolation unit at La Santé prison in Paris, which in the past has housed leftist militant Carlos the Jackal and Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega, features inmates housed in single cells and kept apart during outdoor activities for security reasons.
Conditions are similar to the rest of the prison: cells measure 100 to 130 square feet and, following renovations, now include private showers.
Sarkozy will have access to a television—for a monthly fee of 14 euros—and a landline telephone.
The decision to jail a former president has sparked outrage among Sarkozy’s political allies and the far right.
However, the ruling reflects a shift in France’s approach to white-collar crime, following reforms introduced under a previous Socialist government.
In the 1990s and 2000s, many convicted politicians avoided prison altogether.
To counter perceptions of impunity, French judges are increasingly issuing ‘provisional execution’ orders—requiring sentences to begin immediately, even as appeals are pending—legal experts and politicians told Reuters.
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen has been banned from running for office under the same ‘provisional execution’ provision, pending an appeal early next year.
According to an October 1 Elabe poll for BFM TV, 58 percent of French respondents believe the verdict was impartial, and 61 percent support the decision to send Sarkozy to jail without waiting for the appeal.
President Emmanuel Macron, who had warm relations with Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni, said on Monday he had met Sarkozy ahead of his incarceration.
Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin, who is close to Sarkozy, told France Inter radio he would go and visit the former president.
Daily Mail
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