Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy released from prison pending appeal

Former president Nicolas Sarkozy was released from La Santé prison on Monday after a Paris appeals court granted his request to be freed while he appeals a conviction for criminal conspiracy linked to alleged Libyan financing of his 2007 presidential campaign. The decision places the 70-year-old under judicial supervision as he awaits the appeal process. 

Sarkozy began serving a five-year sentence on Oct. 21 and was freed after roughly three weeks behind bars —a period he described publicly as a “gruelling nightmare.” He has consistently denied wrongdoing and said he intends to prove his innocence during the appeals process. 

The appeals court ordered strict conditions on his release: he is banned from leaving French territory and forbidden from contacting certain people tied to the case, including an explicit restriction against communicating with the country’s justice minister, a measure highlighted after a controversial ministerial visit to the prison. 

The conviction stems from findings that Sarkozy and others conspired to obtain funds from the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to finance his 2007 campaign. Prosecutors say the scheme involved intermediaries and secret transfers; the court did not, in its ruling, establish that the funds were definitively used in campaign accounts. Sarkozy faces additional legal challenges and prior convictions that have already shaped a lengthy legal battle. 

Reactions were swift and divided. Allies in his party welcomed the release as legally appropriate given his pending appeal, while critics and some legal observers noted the case’s wider significance for public trust in political financing and the rule of law. The timing of the release, after a short period of incarceration, has renewed debate in France over how high-profile defendants are treated by the justice system. 

The appeals process is expected to move forward in the coming months; legal teams on both sides have indicated further filings and hearings will determine whether the conviction is upheld, overturned or sent for retrial. For now, Sarkozy remains free at home but under close judicial supervision as his appeal proceeds.