Sawt Falasteen - France's ex-president Sarkozy escorted to jail over Libya funding conviction

He walked out of his home hand-in-hand with his singer wife, Carla Bruni, and left in a car escorted by police on motorbikes.

"Nicolas, Nicolas! Free Nicolas," shouted a crowd who gathered in the road outside to show their support.

Sarkozy, France's right-wing leader from 2007 to 2012, is to become the first former head of an EU country to serve time behind bars.

He was handed a five-year jail term in September for criminal conspiracy over a plan for late Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi to fund his electoral campaign.

The 70-year-old, who has appealed the verdict and denounced an "injustice", is to be incarcerated in La Sante prison in Paris.

"If they absolutely want me to sleep in prison, I will sleep in prison -- but with my head held high," he told the press after his September 25 verdict.

Dozens of supporters had stood outside the former president's home from early Tuesday, some holding up framed portraits of him.

They sang the French national anthem, as neighbours looked on from their balconies.

"This is truly a sad day for France and for democracy. This trial is based on nothing," said Flora Amanou, 41, who said she had closely followed both Sarkozy's presidential campaigns.

Sarkozy will be the first French leader to be incarcerated since Philippe Petain, the Nazi collaborationist head of state who was jailed after World War II.

He has told Le Figaro newspaper he will be taking a biography of Jesus and a copy of "The Count of Monte Cristo", a novel in which an innocent man is sentenced to jail but escapes to take revenge.

- 'Exceptional gravity' -

Sarkozy is likely to be held in a nine square metre (95 square foot) cell in the prison's solitary confinement wing, prison staff told AFP.

This would avoid contact with other prisoners or them taking pictures of him with one of the many mobile phones that are smuggled inside, according to staff.

In solitary confinement, prisoners are allowed out of their cells for one walk a day, alone, in a small yard. Sarkozy will also be allowed visits thrice a week.

It is unclear how long Sarkozy will remain in jail.

Presiding judge Nathalie Gavarino said during sentencing that the offences were of "exceptional gravity", and therefore ordered Sarkozy to be jailed even if he filed an appeal.

But Sarkozy's lawyers are expected to request his release as soon as he sets foot inside the jail, and the appeals court has two months to examine it.

Sarkozy has faced a flurry of legal woes since losing re-election in 2012.

He has been convicted in two separate trials. In one, he served a graft sentence with an electronic ankle tag, which was removed after several months in May.

In the so-called "Libyan case", prosecutors said his aides, acting in Sarkozy's name, struck a deal with Kadhafi in 2005 to illegally fund his victorious presidential election bid two years later.

Investigators believe that in return, Kadhafi was promised help to restore his international image after Tripoli was blamed for the 1988 bombing of a passenger jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, and another over Niger in 1989, killing hundreds of passengers.

But the court's ruling did not follow the prosecutors' conclusion that Sarkozy received or used the funds for his campaign.

It acquitted him on charges of embezzling Libyan public funds, passive corruption and illicit financing of an electoral campaign.

- 'Normal, on a human level' -

Sarkozy was stripped of France's highest distinction, his Legion of Honour, following the graft conviction.

Six out of 10 people in France believe the prison sentence to be "fair", according to a survey of more than 1,000 adults conducted by pollster Elabe.

But Sarkozy still enjoys support on the French right and has on occasion had private meetings with President Emmanuel Macron.

Macron welcomed Sarkozy to the Elysee Palace on Friday, a government source said, a decision the French president defended on Monday.

"It was normal, on a human level, for me to receive one of my predecessors in this context," Macron said.

Some notorious inmates have spent time at La Sante, including Venezuelan militant Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, also known as Carlos the Jackal, who has since been moved.

burs-ah/st

Z.Ramadan--SF-PST