France’s Sarkozy ordered to serve prison time in historic first

Former president given 5-year sentence in illegal election campaign financing from Libya in 2007

- 

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy speaks to the press flanked by his wife Carla Bruni after the verdict in his trial for illegal campaign financing from Libya for his successful 2007 presidential bid, at the Tribunal de Paris courthouse on Thursday.

(AFP)

Former president Nicolas Sarkozy was on Thursday set to become France’s first postwar leader to go to prison after a court jailed him for five years over a scheme for the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi to fund his victorious 2007 presidential run.

The court convicted him on charges of criminal conspiracy, although it acquitted him of corruption and personally accepting illegal campaign financing.

The court ordered that Sarkozy should be placed in custody at a later date, with prosecutors given one month to inform the former head of state when he should go to prison. Even if Sarkozy, 70, appeals the verdict, this measure will remain in force. He will be the first head of state to be jailed since Philippe Petain, the head of France’s Nazi collaborationist Vichy regime.