France’s former president Nicolas Sarkozy has arrived at a prison in Paris to start serving a five-year jail sentence.

The 70-year-old leader arrived at La Sante prison in a police car on Tuesday morning, becoming the first former head of an European Union state to be jailed.

Sarkozy was sentenced to five years after being found guilty last month of criminal conspiracy , due to having accepted millions of euros in illegal payments from the late Libyan ruler, Muammar Gaddafi, to fund his 2007 election campaign.

He has always denied the charges. His lawyers said as he arrived to start his sentence that a request for release had been immediately filed.

“It is not a former president of the republic being jailed this morning, but an innocent man,” he said on X on his way to prison. “Tru

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