French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

I'll have to read more into this, but it says he just "conspired" to do it, whatever that means.

The solitary confinement part is quite harsh, I've never understood how that is supposed to rehabilitate someone.

In France there's early release, parole, etc. so real time he spends behind bars might be as low as two years.

Edit: The WP article is actually a very interesting read, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libyan_financing_in_the_2007_F...

> The solitary confinement part is quite harsh, I've never understood how that is supposed to rehabilitate someone.

In this case it's for his own wellbeing, because it's probably difficult for a former president to go along well with the rest of the prison population. I also read a statement that it would help prevent other inmates taking and publicly sharing pictures of him (since some inmates do manage to have phones even if they are forbidden).

Prison in general is one of the worst ways to rehabilitate someone though, I do agree with you.

> I'll have to read more into this, but it says he just "conspired" to do it, whatever that means.

The court couldn't prove beyond reasonable doubt that the money was used for his campaign.

However they were able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that he knew what his subordinates were planing and that he did nothing to stop it.

In France conspiring to commit a crime is punishable, regardless of whether the crime actually happened or not. That's a law that has been crafted by Sarkozy's own party.

> The solitary confinement part is quite harsh

The solitary part isn't a punishment, but to ensure his safety. They even went as far as to allocated another cell for the two full time police officers of his security detail...

Also the upside is that he has a cell for himself, something a lot of prisoners would love to have given the over prison occupancy in France is 137% (and up to 200% in some specific prisons).

> The solitary confinement part is quite harsh, I've never understood how that is supposed to rehabilitate someone.

It’s for security reasons. It’s also why he’s got bodyguards.

> it's probably difficult for a former president to go along well with the rest of the prison population

Particularly for him who was very keen to be seen as tough on crime to get votes from the far right.

They found secret meetings between his close advisors (two of them) and Lybian terrorist in chief before his election (without the embassy being warned of those), they found documents saying Lybia put money aside to found his political campaign, Khaddaffi was the first leader to Visit Sarkozy after his election, they found Lybian money going toward France, but they "lost track" of the money (probably most of it was cash), and couldn't prove that this money was used for the political campaign. Since the only thing they could prove are those secret meetings, they decided that they would stay on the side of caution and only convict him of provable offense (in nonviolent crime, that's often the case to be clear).

I would be wary of going through the appeal court. The judges motivation make it quite clear they were _extremely_ lenient and chose to ignore how contradictory a lot of statement were, and the other cases linked to this. If he is convicted for "subordination de temoin" in the related case, it is likely that his sentence would be set to a longer time.

The fact that Sarkozy started the Lybian war was also outside of the scope of the trial, sadly.

He's 70 and going to prison for a few years unless it get reversed, it's not about rehabilitation.

It's about making sure crimes have consequences, however highly placed you and your friends are.

He is in the equivalent of the VIP wing of the only prison in Paris Intramuros (within the city walls), the Prison de la Santé. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Sant%C3%A9_Prison The prison has three main sections: the VIP wing, the night-time incarceration wing (sentence adjustment), and the high-security wing.

As the most serious cases at the national level are often tried in Paris, the high-security wing is filled with drug traffickers, murderers and terrorists, at least for the duration of the proceedings, which can take years in France.

Sarkozy is in the VIP wing with two bodyguards nearby. These are hardly the conditions one would imagine for isolation.