Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s former president, just got slapped with a five-year prison sentence for criminal conspiracy in that long-running Libya scandal—allegations he took dirty money from Muammar Gaddafi to bankroll his 2007 campaign. At 70, he’s set to make history as the first ex-French leader to actually do time, and get this: even if he appeals, the court said the sentence kicks in right away—no suspensive clause, so he’s heading to the slammer while still technically innocent until proven otherwise. The Paris court let him off on the big ones like corruption, embezzling Libyan cash, and illegal campaign financing, but nailed him on this conspiracy charge over his aides’ shady chats with Libyan bigwigs back in 2005-2007. Prosecutors painted it as a “Faustian pact” that wrecked public trust, though they couldn’t prove the cash ever hit his war chest.
Sarkozy, who ran the show from 2007 to 2012, didn’t hold back after the gavel dropped. “This is a massive hit to the rule of law,” he fumed outside court, blaming a “left-wing cabal” in the judiciary and media for endless hate. “If they want me in jail that bad, I’ll sleep there—with my head high,” he added, arm-in-arm with wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. She’s tangled up too, charged last year with hiding evidence (which she flat-out denies). His camp’s gearing up for an appeal, ripping the 2013 probe as built on “liars and crooks” like Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam, who spilled the beans right after the 2011 ouster.
It’s been 13 years since he left office, but this ruling’s firing up the old battle lines. Right-wing and far-right fans are howling about biased judges—Marine Le Pen, fresh off her own embezzlement ban that killed her presidential shot, called it straight-up “injustice.” On the flip side, lefties see it as proof the elite skate by, flashing back to his earlier busts: a year on an ankle bracelet for trying to bribe a judge, and another for shady 2012 campaign spending. He even got stripped of his Legion of Honor medal in June over the bribery mess.
The whole mess traces back to whispers of suitcases of cash, offshore dodges, and arms-dealer middlemen—Sarkozy supposedly trading global rehab for Gaddafi in exchange for election dough. Aides like Claude Guéant (corruption) and Brice Hortefeux (conspiracy) took hits too, but campaign boss Eric Woerth walked. He’s no kingmaker anymore, but Sarkozy’s saga keeps ripping open France’s splits: cries of witch hunts from the right, elite get-out-of-jail-free cards from the left. In a politics that’s already a mess, his trials are the spark that won’t quit.
