Overview
- Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy arrived at Paris’s La Santé prison on Tuesday to start his sentence, becoming the first French postwar leader to be jailed.
- The court convicted him of criminal conspiracy for a scheme to seek Libyan funding for his 2007 campaign, while acquitting him of personally receiving or using Libyan cash.
- His lawyers filed an immediate request for release after incarceration, and the appeals court has up to two months to decide as he continues to proclaim his innocence.
- Prison authorities are holding him apart from other inmates for security, in a small individual cell with a shower, landline and TV access, and limited outdoor time and family visits.
- President Emmanuel Macron met Sarkozy before his incarceration and defended the meeting, while polling indicates most respondents view the verdict as impartial and support immediate imprisonment.