PARIS (AP) — France’s financial prosecution office informed former French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday which prison to report to and when, pending his appeal after being sentenced to five years for criminal conspiracy involving the use of funds from Libya to finance his winning 2007 campaign. The details were not immediately made public.
Sarkozy, the first ex-president in modern French history to be imprisoned, has maintained his innocence and has protested the decision to be put behind bars while waiting for the result of his appeal. Once jailed, the 70-year-old will be able to file a release request to the appeals court. Judges will then have up to two months to process the request.
The National Financial Prosecutor’s office, or PNF, told Sarkozy the specifics of his detention during a brief formal meeting on Monday afternoon. Sarkozy left the courthouse shortly afterward.
Before the hearing, Bérénice Dinh, the PNF’s general secretary and spokesperson, said Sarkozy would be told “the date, the place and the hour he has to be there.”
The PNF also said he would not be going to prison on Monday and that it would not make that information public, to spare Sarkozy the ordeal of being filmed at the start of his detention.
While long retired from active politics, Sarkozy remains an influential figure in conservative circles. He served as president from 2007 to 2012 and was previously convicted in another corruption case, but hasn’t had to serve jail time.
For safety reasons, Sarkozy is expected to be held under conditions reserved for high-profile inmates, possibly in a special “VIP area” of La Santé prison in Paris, where some of France’s most notorious criminals have been imprisoned.
Sarkozy was handed the five-year sentence on Sept. 25 in a sprawling legal case after a decade of investigation. The Paris court said the prison sentence was effective immediately instead of suspending it pending appeal, citing “the seriousness of the disruption to public order caused by the offense.”
Sarkozy was given 18 days after the ruling to “organize his professional life” before Monday’s detention decision.
The French justice ministry said in 2024 that 90% of adults convicted and sentenced to at least two years in prison are immediately detained.
The court said Sarkozy, as a presidential candidate and interior minister, used his position “to prepare corruption at the highest level” from 2005 to 2007 to finance his presidential campaign with funds from Libya, then led by longtime ruler Moammar Gadhafi.
The court cleared Sarkozy of three other charges and said there is no evidence the money transferred from Libya to France ended up being used in Sarkozy’s 2007 campaign or for his “direct personal enrichment.”
Sarkozy has consistently claimed his innocence, insisting he was the victim of a plot by people linked to the Libyan government. He suggested the allegations were retaliation for his call in 2011 for the removal of Gadhafi, who was toppled and killed amid Arab Spring pro-democracy protests that year.
An appeal trial is scheduled to take place at a later date, possibly in the spring.
A car carrying former French President Nicolas Sarkozy leaves his home before appearing at the National Financial Prosecutor's office to set a date and location for his incarceration, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025 in Paris. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)
FILE- Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy leaves after a Paris court sentenced him to 5 years after finding him guilty of criminal conspiracy in an alleged scheme to finance his 2007 campaign with funds from Libya, Thursday, Sept. 25, 2025 in Paris. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that “someone from within” the Iranian regime might be the best choice to take power once the U.S.-Israel military campaign is completed — but said “most of the people we had in mind are dead.”
The president, who four days ago had emphatically called on Iranians to “take over your government” once the U.S.-Israel bombardment ends, appeared to drift further away from the idea that the war presents an opportunity to end the theocratic rule that has been in place since the country's 1979 Islamic revolution.
Trump said that many Iranian officials his administration had viewed as potential new leaders for the country had been killed in the U.S.-Israeli campaign that killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and many other top officials.
Trump has not publicly identified anyone whom he views as a credible future leader for Iran. And it’s unclear what, if any, outreach the White House had with Iranian officials since the war started.
“Most of the people we had in mind are dead,” he said in an exchange with reporters in the Oval Office. “Now we have another group, they may be dead also, based on reports. So you have a third wave coming. Pretty soon we’re not going to know anybody.”
Trump said Reza Pahlavi, the exiled crown prince of Iran’s last shah who is trying to position himself for a return should Iran’s Shiite theocracy fall, is not someone that his administration has considered in depth to take over leadership in Iran.
“It would seem to me that somebody from within maybe would be more appropriate,” Trump said, adding that it may make sense for “somebody that’s there, that’s currently popular, if there is such a person” to emerge from the power vacuum.
Trump's comments came as he hosted German Chancellor Friedrich Merz for his first in-person engagement with a foreign leader since the U.S. and Israel launched the war against Iran.
Trump said he wanted to avoid a “worst case” scenario where “somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person.”
“That could happen. We don’t want that to happen,” Trump added. “You go through this, and then in five years you realize you put somebody in who was no better.”
The White House has stepped up its push to counter criticism that it moved unnecessarily quickly to launch a war of choice against Iran.
Trump’s decision to strike last week followed lengthy negotiations by the president’s envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner with the Iranians — talks the U.S. increasingly viewed as an effort to stall any progress.
After the most recent round of discussions in Geneva, Switzerland, last week, Witkoff and Kushner told Trump that reaching a nuclear agreement similar to one that former President Barack Obama struck in 2015 was possible, according to a senior administration official.
The official, who briefed journalists on condition of anonymity, described it as a potential “Obama-plus deal” and Witkoff and Kushner believed such an agreement would take months, but was possible.
Still, even as they expressed their willingness to pursue diplomacy and “fight for every point that we can” if that’s what Trump wanted, the negotiators stressed to the president that the Iranians were not willing to make a deal that would be satisfactory to the U.S.
Meanwhile, Trump sharply criticized Britain and Spain for their reluctance to aid the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran.
“This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with,” Trump fumed about British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Starmer had initially blocked American planes from using British bases for the attacks on Iran that started on Saturday. He later agreed to let the United States use bases in England and on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to strike Iran’s ballistic missiles and their storage sites, but not to hit other targets.
Trump also said he was going to "cut off all trade with Spain,” the day after Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said his country would not allow the U.S. to use jointly operated bases in southern Spain in any strikes not covered by the United Nations’ charter.
The president also sought to push back on criticism from some of his staunchest allies over the decision to go to war — questions that grew louder after Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Monday that the U.S. had decided to strike because “we knew that there was going to be an Israeli action.”
“And we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” Rubio said.
But Trump rejected the notion that the White House had been dragged into the conflict by Israel. “We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack,” Trump said. “If anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand.”
Merz said during his visit with Trump at the Oval Office that Germany is “looking forward to the day after” the Iran war is over.
He said Berlin wants to work with the U.S. on a strategy for when the current Iranian government no longer exists.
“We are having a high interest in common approach and common work and what we can do,” Merz said. “And this is this is important not just for the Americans,” he said. “This is extremely important for Europe and extremely important for Israel and their security.”
Merz also noted surging oil prices were damaging the world economy, laying down an argument for finding a quick endgame to the conflict.
The president acknowledged that oil and gas prices were going to rise as the U.S. remains engaged in the strikes — yet argued it would be fleeting.
“We have a little high oil prices for a little while, but as soon as this ends, those prices are going to drop, I believe, lower than even before,” Trump said.
The average price for a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. jumped 11 cents overnight Tuesday to about $3.11 in the United States, according to the AAA.
AP writers Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin, Fatima Hussein and Michelle L. Price in Washington, and Jill Lawless in London contributed reporting.
President Donald Trump meets with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the Oval Office at the White House, Tuesday, March 3, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
President Donald Trump, right, talks with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz during a meeting in the Oval Office at the White House, Tuesday, March 3, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the Oval Office at the White House, Tuesday, March 3, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
