Paris (AFP) – Nicolas Sarkozy entered the Elysee Palace in 2007 boasting hyperactive energy and a vision to transform France, but lost office after just one term and the ex-president is now set to go to prison in a spectacular downfall.
Embroiled in legal problems since losing the 2012 election, Sarkozy, 70, had already been convicted in two separate cases but managed to avoid going to jail.
But after a judge sentenced him on Thursday to five years for criminal conspiracy over a scheme to find funding from Libya's then-leader Moamer Kadhadi for his 2007 campaign, Sarkozy appeared to acknowledge that this time he will go behind bars.
Prosecutors have one month to inform Sarkozy when he must report to jail, a measure that will remain in force despite his promised appeal.
"I will assume my responsibilities, I will comply with court summonses, and if they absolutely want me to sleep in prison, I will sleep in prison but with my head held high," he told reporters after the verdict.
"I am innocent. This injustice is a scandal. I will not accuse myself of something I did not do," he added, declaring that hatred towards him "definitely has no limits".
The drama and defiance were typical of Sarkozy, who is still seen by some supporters on the right as a dynamic saviour of his country but by detractors as a vulgar populist mired in corruption.
Born on January 28, 1955, the football fanatic and cycling enthusiast is an atypical French politician.
The son of a Hungarian immigrant father, Sarkozy has a law degree but unlike most of his peers did not attend the exclusive Ecole Nationale d'Administration, the well-worn production line for future French leaders.
After winning the presidency at age 52, he was initially seen as injecting a much-needed dose of dynamism, making a splash on the international scene and wooing the corporate world. He took a hard line on immigration, security and national identity.
But Sarkozy's presidency was overshadowed by the 2008 financial crisis, and he left the Elysee with the lowest popularity ratings of any postwar French leader up to then.
Few in France have forgotten his visit to the 2008 agriculture show in Paris, when he said "get lost, dumbass" to a man who refused to shake his hand.
Sarkozy failed to win a second mandate in 2012 in a run-off against Socialist Francois Hollande, a bruising defeat over which he remains embittered more than a decade on.
The 2012 defeat made Sarkozy the first president since Valery Giscard d'Estaing (1974-1981) to be denied a second term, prompting him to famously promise: "You won't hear about me anymore."
That prediction turned out to be anything but true, given his marriage to superstar musician and model Carla Bruni and a return to frontline politics. But the latter ended when he failed to win his party's nomination for another crack at the presidency in 2017.
The series of legal woes left Sarkozy a behind-the-scenes political player, far from the limelight in which he once basked, although he has retained influence on the right and is known to meet President Emmanuel Macron.
But Sarkozy is tainted by a number of unwanted firsts: while his predecessor and mentor Jacques Chirac was also convicted of graft, Sarkozy was the first postwar French former head of state to be convicted twice and the first to be formally given jail terms.
Already stripped of the Legion of Honour, France's highest distinction, he will now be the first French head of state to go to jail since Philippe Petain, France's nominal leader during the Nazi occupation.