Overview

• The jailing would make him the first former head of an EU country to serve time in prison and the first French leader incarcerated since Philippe Pétain.
• He was found guilty of criminal conspiracy tied to efforts to secure Libyan support for his 2007 campaign, while acquitted of embezzlement, passive corruption and illicit campaign financing.
• The sentence is five years plus a 100,000 euro fine, and the court ordered provisional execution despite his appeal.
• His lawyers plan to seek release once he enters custody, with the appeals court given up to two months to rule on his detention.
• Prison officials expect him to be held in a nine-square-meter solitary cell for security reasons, and he has said he is not afraid of jail and plans to write a book; the presiding judge has received death threats condemned by President Emmanuel Macron.