Nicolas Sarkozy’s election as French president in April 2007 enjoyed record local viewing figures for the time, with some 13.3 million people tuning as results rolled in.
Eighteen years later, the former president drew millions of viewers once again as he set off on Tuesday morning for Paris’ La Santé prison begin a five-year sentence, after being found guilty of conspiring to raise funds from late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi to finance his 2007 election campaign.
The 70-year-old former statesman, who was acquitted of personally receiving or using the funds, has continued to profess his innocence.
But with the ex-president becoming the first post-World War Two French leader to be sent to prison, the historic event was covered live by all of France’s main broadcasters, news channels and news websites.
More than 500 channels worldwide also tuned into agency the coverage, either live or with edited extracts, from Afghanistan to the U.S.
The coverage captured Sarkozy as he left his home in Paris’ swanky 16th arrondissement, appearing hand in hand with his wife, the former model and singer Carla Bruni, who blew discreet kisses to well-wishers who had gathered to support her husband.
A wall of press was also gathered on one side, capturing the moment he briefly embraced Bruni and got into the car taking him to prison.
After the vehicle set-off, Bruni was shown slightly hunched walking down a cobbled alley back to the family home, embracing the couple’s teenage daughter.
Sarkozy’s journey through Paris, which took him past the French National Assembly parliament building, was also captured live with more than a dozen cameramen on bikes tailing his car.
As the ex-president was whisked through Paris, he posted a long message on X, reasserting his innocence: “It is not a former president of the Republic who is being imprisoned this morning, it is an innocent man.”
“I will continue denounce this affair, this arduous journey, that I’ve suffered for 10 years. Here’s an illegal finance case, without the least bit of financing!”
According to local media reports, Sarkozy will be held alone in a cell measuring between 11 sq m (120 sq ft, with a small, sealed window. He will have a desk, fridge and stove as well as access to a TV set but not a cell phone.
In an interview with the ‘Le Figaro newspaper two days before his incarceration, Sarkozy, who has the right to three books, said he would be taking ‘The life of Jesus’ by Jean-Christian Petitfils and both volumes of Alexandre Dumas’s 1946 classic The Count of Monte Cristo, about a man who is wrongly imprisoned.
He added he also planned to wile away the hours by writing a book inspired by this prison experiences.
Situated close to Montmartre, La Santé is one of three main prisons in Paris. One of its distinguishing characteristics is a special wing to house so-called “personalities”, with past inmates including rogue trader Jérôme Kerviel, French gangster Jacques Mesrine, Panamanian military dictator Manuel Noriega, as well as in its very early years of existence, the playwright Guillaume Apollinaire.
Sarkozy’s incarceration has divided the country’s media along partisan lines.
Investigative news site Mediapart, which first broke the news of links between the funding of Sarkozy’s presidential election campaign and Gaddafi, put up a special edition pushing back on political support for Sarkozy as well as coverage in right-leaning outlets condemning his treatment.
It also carried a report on how supporters outside his home had also leveled special criticism at journalists and judges as they waited for him to arrive.
Leftwing newspaper ‘Libération’ carried an image of Sarkozy on its front page with the headline, “In The Shade” as well as a stinging editorial saying ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ book detail was part of a PR stunt to paint the politician as a victim and undermine his conviction.
“The objective of all this froth is, of course, to distract our attention from the truth of a judgment that sentenced a former President of the Republic to five years in prison for criminal conspiracy,” it read.
“A sentence that there is no reason to rejoice over. But a sentence, too, that there is no reason not to face, decided by an independent justice system indifferent to the noise and fury of the crime of lèse-majesté.”
By contrast, right-wing news channel CNews went into overdrive to present Sarkozy’s imprisonment as a travesty of justice, rolling out multiple political allies and supporters who condemned the move, declaring it as “a sad” and “shameful” day for France.
Local media suggest Sarkozy will not remain in prison for a long time.
His lawyer Christophe Ingrain, who accompanied the politician to La Santé on Tuesday as he went through the formalities of being received at the prison, immediately deposed a formal request for his release.
He told press that the judges had two months to reply but if the request is accepted Sarkozy would be free to leave the next day. In the meantime, he expected the ex-president to spend at least three weeks to a month in jail.
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