France's Sarkozy: from palace to prison

France's former president Nicolas Sarkozy leaves his residence to present himself to La Sante Prison for incarceration on a five-year prison sentence, in Paris, on October 21, 2025. [AFP] Nicolas Sarkozy entered the Elysee Palace in 2007 boasting hyperactive energy and a vision to transform France, but lost office after just one term. The ex-president has now gone to prison in a spectacular downfall. The outspoken right-wing politician had pledged to stay in the margins following his electoral defeat, famously quipping: "You won't hear about me anymore". This promise has proved hard to keep, given his third marriage to superstar musician and model Carla Bruni, an attempt to return to frontline politics in 2017, and now a headline-grabbing legal fiasco. Embroiled in legal problems since losing the 2012 election, Sarkozy, 70, had already been convicted in two other cases but managed to avoid going to jail. He entered prison on Tuesday after a judge sentenced him last month to five years for criminal conspiracy over a scheme to secure funding for his 2007 campaign from Libya's then-leader Moamer Kadhafi. "It is not a former president of the republic being jailed this morning, but an innocent man," he said on X. "This morning I feel a profound sadness for France, which has been humiliated." After the verdict, he said he was the victim of a scandalous "injustice", saying he would "sleep in prison -- but with my head held high". He told Le Figaro newspaper he would be taking with him a biography of Jesus and a copy of "The Count of Monte Cristo", a novel in which an innocent man is sentenced to jail but escapes to take revenge. 2008 financial crisis The drama and defiance were characteristic of Sarkozy, who is still seen by some supporters on the right as a dynamic saviour of his country, but by detractors as a vulgar populist mired in corruption. Born on January 28, 1955, the football fanatic and cycling enthusiast is an atypical French politician. The son of a Hungarian immigrant father, Sarkozy studied law at Sciences Po university, but unlike most of his peers did not attend the exclusive Ecole Nationale d'Administration, the well-worn production line for future French leaders. After becoming president at age 52, he was initially seen as injecting a much-needed dose of liveliness, making a splash on the international scene and wooing the corporate world. He adopted a hard line on immigration, security and national identity. But Sarkozy's presidency was overshadowed by the 2008 financial crisis, and he left the Elysee Palace with the lowest popularity ratings of any post-war French leader up to then. Few in France have forgotten his visit to the 2008 agriculture show in Paris, when he said "get lost, dumbass" to a man who refused to shake his hand. Behind the scenes Sarkozy failed to win a second mandate in 2012 in a run-off against Socialist Francois Hollande, a bruising defeat over which he remains embittered more than a decade on. The 2012 defeat made Sarkozy the first president since Valery Giscard d'Estaing (1974-1981) to be denied a second term. A foray back into the centrestage ended when he failed to win his party's nomination for another crack at the presidency in 2017. Sarkozy's legal woes have left him a behind-the-scenes political player, far from the limelight in which he once basked. But he has retained influence on the right and is known to meet President Emmanuel Macron. The president hosted him at the Elysee on Friday just days before he was incarcerated, defending the meeting as "normal, on a human level". Already stripped of the Legion of Honour, France's highest distinction, Sarkozy is now the first French head of state to go to jail since Philippe Petain, France's nominal leader during the Nazi occupation.

France's Sarkozy: from palace to prison

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