Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy will be sentenced to five years in prison by the Paris Criminal Court for allegedly illegally receiving campaign funding from Libya’s former leader Gaddafi. At present, Sarkozy’s team of lawyers has filed an appeal but the appeal has no suspensive effect. The appeal hearing is expected to take place in March 2026.
According to RTL Radio France, Sarkozy will be placed first in the “New Prison Area” for observation, after which he will be transferred to the “Fragile Prison Area” on the upper floor of the same building. The area is completely isolated from the other prison areas, specifically designed to protect certain prisoners and prevent them from being violated or threatened by other prisoners. The area has 18 cells and currently holds 25 prisoners. Given the possible security risks faced by the former head of state, Sarkozy will be placed in one of those empty rooms.
Bonaroche, a member of the French Senate Legal Committee, said that Sarkozy's cell is nothing special. Like every room in the cell area, it has a telephone, refrigerator, TV, electric stove and shower room. The activities available to prisoners here, meal standards, release hours and visiting arrangements are exactly the same as other prisoners. According to French media, prisoners in La Sainte Prison live and eat in their cells and receive family visits three times a week.
According to the French magazine Opinion, Sarkozy can use the library, the stadium and the visitor rooms inside the prison, and can communicate normally with priests and lawyers. He can also call a “determined number of telephone numbers declared in advance” by telephone or pay phone. The magazine commented that the “fragile prison area” of the Paris prison was also mistakenly referred to as the “hostel area”: but it did not provide any special rights for “residents” except for being alone in a 9-square-meter cell and nearby protection when walking inside the prison.