Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, aged 70, will begin to serve a five-year prison sentence on 21 October 20123 at the prison de la Santé in Paris, according to sources close to the dossier. This incarceration marks a historic turning point, making him the first former head of state of a country of the European Union to be imprisoned. Nicolas Sarkozy was convicted on 25 September 2025 by the Tribunal correctionnel de Paris for association of perpetrators in the Libyan financing of his 2007 presidential campaign. The Tribunal found that it had allowed relatives to contact Libyan officials to obtain financial support from the regime of Mouammar Gaddafi, who died in 2011. Although acquitted of three other counts of passive corruption, embezzlement of Libyan public funds and illegal financing of electoral campaigns, the court underlined the “exceptional gravity” of the facts. The investigation, opened in 2013, is based on allegations that up to 50 million euros were paid by the Libyan regime in exchange for promises to improve Gaddafi’s image in the West. Among the key witnesses were Saïf al-Islam Gaddafi, son of the former dictator, and the Lebanese-French businessman Ziad Takieddine.
Nicolas Sarkozy: Prime ex-president of the EU to be incarcerated le 21 octobre 2025
