French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

So is this a criminal president receiving justice, or a politically motivated prosecution?

He received money from Libya for his presidential campaign [0], he's just a criminal ex-president...

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libyan_financing_in_the_2007_F...

It's way more complicated than this.

First, this is mostly about things that happened before his election.

The tribunal ruled he did not personally benefit, and he did not directly solicit money to finance his campaign either.

However, some of his closest allies (who would become his ministers later) did the latter. The tribunal could not find any direct proof he was involved but ruled there were enough "converging indications" that he knew and did nothing to stop it.

To be fair, the probability that the short explanation "He received money from Libya for his presidential campaign" is actually the truth is very high.

There is no formal proofs, but as you say, (the judges deliberated that) there is enough "converging indications" to support the idea that the short explanation is true.