Former president organised stage-managed departure from his Paris home before becaming first French postwar leader to be jailed. Da The Guardian
The former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has entered a prison in Paris, after a court sentenced him to five years for criminal conspiracy over a scheme to obtain election campaign funds from the regime of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
France’s rightwing president between 2007 and 2012 is the first former head of an EU country to serve time in prison, and the first French postwar leader to be jailed.
Sarkozy, who has appealed against his conviction, had sought to avoid being photographed at the gates of La Santé prison in the south of Paris. Instead, he organised a highly stage-managed departure from his home in the west of the capital where he walked with his wife, the singer Carla Bruni, to greet crowds gathered in the street outside.
First his children, led by Giulia, his 14-year-old daughter with Bruni, walked slowly from his home to greet well-wishers. Louis Sarkozy, one of Sarkozy’s sons, who is preparing to run for mayor in Menton on the French Riviera next spring, had called for supporters to demonstrate in the street.
