A court verdict sending former president Nicolas Sarkozy to prison for criminal conspiracy has laid bare France's stark political divisions, with the ruling cheered by the left but slammed by the ascendant right.

Sarkozy, seen as a mentor to many conservative politicians, was convicted Thursday over a scheme enabling late Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi to fund his 2007 presidential run.

He must serve his sentence while awaiting the outcome of his appeal, and will be the first French postwar leader to serve jail time.

"I will not forget what he did and gave for our country," Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said in carefully worded comments to the Le Parisien newspaper Friday, expressing his "friendship for the man and his family".

Lecornu, whose political roots are on the right, said h

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