Overview

• Sarkozy is due at the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office on Monday to be told when and where he will be jailed, with detention legally possible any time up to mid-February 2026 but expected sooner.
• Authorities are preparing heightened security, with likely placement in Paris’s La Santé prison in a unit for vulnerable inmates or in isolation to ensure his safety.
• Once incarcerated, his lawyers can immediately seek release from the Paris appeals court, which has up to two months to decide and could consider alternatives such as electronic monitoring.
• The Paris court sentenced him on September 25 to five years for criminal conspiracy tied to a bid for Libyan funding in 2007, while acquitting him of passive corruption, illicit campaign financing and embezzlement.
• If he enters custody, he would be the first postwar French leader and the first former head of an EU country to serve jail time, with a new appeal trial expected in the coming months.