France: Sarkozy in prison since 21 October

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy will be imprisoned on 21 October in the Santé prison in Paris, broadcaster BFMTV has learned from a source close to the case. Sarkozy was sentenced to five years in prison for 'criminal conspiracy' for allowing his closest aides to get close to Muammar Gaddafi's Libya in order to illegally finance his 2007 presidential campaign.

Sarkozy went to the National Financial Prosecutor's Office in the morning to find out the details of his detention.

The former President of the Republic will probably be placed in solitary confinement, but with an ordinary regime to mitigate his harshness. Indeed, the prison administration does not want to run the risk of him coming into contact with other inmates and his safety being threatened. On 25 September, the Criminal Court of Paris had sentenced the former head of state. Although he appealed against the sentence, Nicolas Sarkozy remains in prison because of the deferred arrest warrant with provisional execution issued against him, explains Le Figaro.