Defiant Sarkozy heads to jail to start sentence – Europe live

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Sarkozy arrives at La Santé prison

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has arrived at La Santé prison in Paris on Tuesday to start a five-year prison term, Reuters reports.

Sarkozy, who was the conservative president of France between 2007 and 2012, 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.

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.

The ex-president was reported by the Associated Press (AP) as saying “an innocent man is being locked up” while on his way to prison.

A police convoy carrying former French president Nicolas Sarkozy arrives at the Prison de la Sante to begin his five-year prison sentence for criminal conspiracy over attempts to raise campaign funds from Libya, in Paris, France, 21 October 2025. Photograph: Christian Hartmann/Reuters

Opening summary

Good morning and welcome back to our live coverage of Europe.

France’s ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy is to be jailed on Tuesday after being found guilty of acquiring Libyan funding for his 2007 presidential run.

France’s right-wing leader from 2007 to 2012 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 against the verdict and denounced an “injustice”, is to be incarcerated in La Sante prison in Paris.

France’s former president Nicolas Sarkozy hugs his wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, as he leaves his residence to present himself to La Sante prison for incarceration on a five-year prison sentence after being convicted of criminal conspiracy over a plan for late Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi to fund his 2007 electoral campaign, in Paris, on 21 October 2025. Photograph: Julien de Rosa/AFP/Getty Images

“If they absolutely want me to sleep in prison, I will sleep in prison – but with my head held high,” he told the press after his 25 September verdict.

Sarkozy’s family has called for supporters to show solidarity with the former head of state as he leaves his Paris home for prison on Tuesday.

Sarkozy will be the first French leader to be incarcerated since Philippe Petain, the Nazi collaborationist head of state who was jailed after the second world war.

He has told Le Figaro, a right-leaning newspaper, that he will be taking with him a biography of Jesus and a copy of “The Count of Monte Cristo”, a novel in which an innocent man is sentenced to jail but escapes to take revenge.

In other developments:

• French police stepped up the hunt Tuesday for thieves who stole priceless royal jewels from the Louvre museum in a spectacular daylight robbery. As the museum remained closed for a second day Monday, officials said 60 investigators were working on the theory that an organised crime group was behind the raid in which nine pieces of jewellery were taken.

• Russia’s air defence units destroyed 55 Ukrainian drones overnight, RIA news agency reported on Tuesday, citing data from the Russian defence ministry.

• Russia’s top diplomat Sergei Lavrov and US counterpart Marco Rubio discussed preparations for an upcoming summit between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in a call on Monday, both sides said. Rubio “emphasised the importance of upcoming engagements as an opportunity for Moscow and Washington to collaborate on advancing a durable resolution of the Russia-Ukraine war,” principal deputy spokesperson Tommy Pigott said in a statement.

• Volodymyr Zelenskyy has painted his meeting last week with Donald Trump as a success that yielded progress on acquiring new air defence systems, a contrast from reports that Trump had berated him with obscenities in the White House. In comments to the media on Sunday that were embargoed until Monday, the Ukrainian president described Trump’s message at the meeting as “positive”, even though Zelenskyy did not secure Tomahawk cruise missiles.

• Zelenskyy will travel to London on Friday for a meeting of the “coalition of the willing” before the expected summit between Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin in Hungary, amid mounting European disquiet over Ukraine’s exclusion from the Budapest meeting. Zelenskyy said the aim of the London visit was to win security guarantees for Kyiv and there would be “many meetings and negotiations in Europe” this week.

• A new Russian attack on the Ukrainian border region of Chernihiv on Monday knocked out power to stretches of territory in the north of the country, including the main town outside the decommissioned Chornobyl nuclear power station, officials said. The local power company in the region, Chernihivoblenergo, said the latest assault targeted an energy site, but did not identify it.

• A tornado tore through districts north of Paris on Monday, toppling three construction cranes that killed one person and left four others with critical injuries, authorities said. The town of Ermont, about 20km (13 miles) north-east of Paris was worst hit by the sudden twister that caused damage across about 10 districts.