A court in Paris on Thursday found Nicolas Sarkozy, former president of France, guilty of a criminal conspiracy to finance his 2007 campaign with funds from the government of the onetime Libyan strongman Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.
Mr. Sarkozy, a conservative politician who led France from 2007 to 2012, was sentenced to five years in prison and a fine of 100,000 euros, or about $117,000.
The court ruled that Mr. Sarkozy would be taken into custody at a later date and that incarceration would be enforced even if he appeals — a harsh sentence that few expected and that is unprecedented in modern French history for a former president.
Mr. Sarkozy was acquitted on charges of corruption and illegal campaign financing after the court found there was not enough evidence that Libyan funds had actually materialized in Mr. Sarkozy’s campaign.
The ruling on Thursday was perhaps the most severe and most damaging blow to Mr. Sarkozy’s legacy, with the court finding that he was guilty of scheming to reach the most powerful office in France by seeking money from an autocratic government.
Nathalie Gavarino, the presiding judge, said as she read out the court’s ruling that Mr. Sarkozy had allowed top aides who worked under his authority and “acted in his name” to “obtain or try to obtain” funding from Libya.
The conspiracy, Ms. Gavarino said, aimed to prepare “corruption at the highest possible level” and was an “extremely serious” act likely to “undermine citizens’ confidence in those who represent them.”
“These facts make it necessary to impose a prison sentence,” she said.
Mr. Sarkozy, now 70, no longer holds any public office, but he is a well-regarded figure on the right who retains some political influence. At the three-month trial, he repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
The conviction was not the first for Mr. Sarkozy, who since leaving office has already been found guilty of corruption, influence peddling and campaign spending violations in separate cases. He has also been stripped of France’s highest distinction, the Legion of Honor.
Mr. Sarkozy was cleared on charges of illegal campaign financing; concealing the misappropriation of public funds; and passive corruption, which applies to people suspected of receiving money or favors.
Ms. Gavarino said that there was evidence that Libyan funds had transited to France in 2006, but that the path they took was “opaque” and that the court had seen no firm proof they had been used in Mr. Sarkozy’s campaign. The court also said there was no evidence of a deal struck directly between Mr. Sarkozy and Colonel el-Qaddafi, who was killed during an uprising in 2011.
Still, prosecutors had accused the former French leader of being a central figure in a “corruption pact” with Libyan officials to funnel money to his 2007 campaign through a bank and cash transfers, offshore accounts, and sham transactions.
Prosecutors said that the scheme violated France’s election rules, which prohibit funding from a foreign state and have a strict spending cap for presidential campaigns. In return, prosecutors said, Libya wanted economic deals, diplomatic recognition and possibly assistance from France in rescinding an arrest warrant against a top Libyan official who was wanted for the bombing of a French airliner in 1989 that killed 171 people.
Top aides to Mr. Sarkozy made several trips to Libya from 2005 to 2007, when he was interior minister — a time when the Qaddafi government was trying to shed its pariah status.
Mr. Sarkozy visited Libya shortly after he was elected, then welcomed Colonel el-Qaddafi for a widely criticized state visit, during which the Libyan strongman pitched his Bedouin-style tent in a Paris garden.
The verdict capped a sprawling case that stretched over a decade with twists and turns — including, just days before the decision, the death of Ziad Takieddine, a French Lebanese businessman who said he had personally delivered millions for Mr. Sarkozy’s campaign and who was one of the defendants at the trial.
In 2023, Mr. Sarkozy was placed under formal investigation on charges of benefiting from witness tampering after accusations that his allies had pressured Mr. Takieddine to retract his claims.
Mr. Sarkozy had strenuously denied any corruption pact, arguing that the accusations were driven mostly by allies of Colonel el-Qaddafi seeking revenge. Under Mr. Sarkozy’s leadership, France played a prominent role in the NATO-led campaign of airstrikes that ultimately led to the toppling of Colonel el-Qaddafi and his death at the hands of Libyan rebels.
Mr. Sarkozy’s legal team also noted that the investigation, which started in 2013, had found little trace of Libyan funds in Mr. Sarkozy’s campaign and no conclusive evidence that Libya had sent millions, as some former Libyan officials had claimed.
Under French law, though, prosecutors do not have to prove that a corrupt deal was fully carried out to secure a conspiracy conviction — only that a deal was agreed upon.
Since 1945, only one other former French head of state has been found guilty by a court of law: Jacques Chirac, who was convicted in 2011 of misusing public funds when he was mayor of Paris. Mr. Chirac was given a suspended sentence.