Nicolas Sarkozy now knows the date he will be incarcerated. On Monday, October 13, prosecutors informed him during a hearing of about 25 minutes that he would be taken into custody on October 21 at La Santé prison in Paris. Sarkozy was convicted of criminal conspiracy in the case of alleged Libyan financing of his 2007 presidential campaign and sentenced to five years in prison. He is the first postwar French leader to be required to serve time in a prison cell.

Unlike some co-defendants, Sarkozy was not sent directly to prison upon his sentencing. However, the court did not grant him the possibility of awaiting his upcoming appeal trial at home. Sarkozy will be detained following his conviction in the first stage of his trial, but he remains legally presumed innocent while his appeal is pending – a process that could take several months.

Although he does not benefit from any special legal status, Sarkozy is hardly an ordinary inmate. If he were, he would likely have to share a cell or even sleep on a mattress on the floor, like more than a hundred detainees at La Santé prison, where overcrowding has reached nearly 190% of capacity, according to the FO prison officers' union.

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