00:00Defiant former French president Nicolas Sarkozy leaving for La Santé prison on Tuesday to the chance of his supporters.
00:09He arrived at the institution less than an hour later to begin his five-year sentence,
00:15the first ex-leader of modern France to find themselves in jail.
00:22Time in prison is madness. It's madness.
00:25And so he'll go like this with his kit of personal items,
00:28and then they'll take him to his cell.
00:30They'll open the cell and he'll discover where he'll go.
00:33So that's what I've described on several occasions.
00:36A small 70-centimetre bed fixed to the floor, a hot plate, a pay refrigerator, a pay TV.
00:45Sarkozy was convicted in September of criminal conspiracy
00:48in the case involving Libyan funding of his 2007 presidential campaign.
00:53In a statement on his way to jail, he said an innocent man was being locked up.
00:58He can ask to be isolated, but he will not decide.
01:03Some things that you have to understand that you decide nothing in jail.
01:09You decide nothing.
01:11Even you are president of the republic, even you are a very rich man, you decide nothing.
01:18Sarkozy contests both the conviction and the judge's unusual decision to incarcerate him pending appeal.
01:26His lawyers say a request for release will be filed quickly.
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