France’s ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy left home on Tuesday to head to jail after being found guilty of seeking to acquire Libyan funding for his 2007 presidential run.

He walked out of his home hand-in-hand with his singer wife, Carla Bruni, and left in a car escorted by police on motorbikes.

“Nicolas, Nicolas! Free Nicolas,” shouted a crowd who gathered in the road outside to show their support.

Sarkozy, France’s right-wing leader from 2007 to 2012, is to become the first former head of an EU country to serve time behind bars.

He was handed a five-year jail term in September for criminal conspiracy over a plan for late Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi to fund his electoral campaign.

The 70-year-old, who has appealed the verdict and denounced an “injustice”, is to be incarcerated in La

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