Nicolas Sarkozy will become the first former French president in living memory to be imprisoned when he is expected to begin a five-year sentence Tuesday in Paris’ La Santé prison.
Convicted of criminal conspiracy in a scheme to finance his 2007 election campaign with funds from Libya, Sarkozy maintains his innocence. Regardless, he will be admitted to serve his time in a prison that has held some of the most high-profile inmates since the 19th century. They include Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, wrongly convicted of treason because he was Jewish, and the Venezuelan militant known as Carlos the Jackal, who carried out several attacks on French soil.
