'The truth will prevail': Former French president Nicholas Sarkozy arrives at prison in Paris to begin five year jail sentence

Sarkozy, 70, was sentenced to five years behind bars last month for conspiring to fund his French election campaign using money accepted from late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

Arriving at the imposing entrance of La Santé prison on Tuesday, the former leader is set to occupy a cell in the prison's isolation wing, measuring around 9m square (around 95ft square).

He has since lodged an appeal against his jail sentence.

The judge handing down the jail term ruled that Sarkozy would begin his sentence without waiting for his appeal to be heard, nodding to “the seriousness of the disruption to public order caused by the offense”.

The disgraced president becomes the first French president in living memory to be imprisoned.

Read more: Prince Andrew has 'not paid rent on the Royal Lodge since 2003' as MPs push to strip him of dukedom

Read more: Oxford Union president-elect ousted after 'celebrating' assassination of Charlie Kirk

Nazi collaborationist leader Philippe Pétain was the only other French leader to be locked up, sentenced on treason charges in 1945.

Sarkozy held the position of French president between 2007-2012, with his son, Louis, 28, calling on supporters to make themselves known following the sentence.

The request resulted in more than 100 people gathering outside the former French president's home.

The former leader arrived at the 19th-Century prison in the Montparnasse district, located south of the River Seine, shortly after 08:30 local time (07:40 GMT) flanked by security.

Arriving at the prison, Sarkozy held hands with wife Carla Bruni as the pair put on a united front for waiting media.

Earlier this month a Paris court found him guilty on one charge but acquitted him of others over the alleged illegal financing of the campaign with money from the government of then-Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

Sarkozy, who was elected in 2007 but lost his bid for re-election in 2012, denied all wrongdoing during a three-month trial that also involved 11 co-defendants, including three former ministers.

"An innocent man is being locked up," he wrote early on Tuesday before handing himself in to prison officers.

"I am not asking for any advantages or favours," he added.

"The truth will prevail."

"With unwavering strength I tell [the French people] it is not a former president they are locking up this morning - it is an innocent man," he wrote.

"Do not feel sorry for me because my wife and my children are by my side... but this morning I feel deep sorrow for a France humiliated by a will for revenge."

The accusations trace their roots to 2011, when a Libyan news agency and Gadhafi himself said the Libyan state had secretly funnelled millions of euros into Sarkozy's 2007 campaign.

Despite multiple legal scandals that have clouded his presidential legacy, Sarkozy remains an influential figure in right-wing politics in France and in entertainment circles by virtue of his marriage to Bruni-Sarkozy.