France’s former president Nicolas Sarkozy is set to begin a prison sentence on Tuesday October 21, after being convicted of criminal conspiracy in connection with alleged Libyan funding for his 2007 presidential campaign, making him the first ex-head of an EU nation to serve time behind bars.

Sarkozy who led France from 2007 to 2012, was found guilty in late September over a scheme involving late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s regime, which prosecutors said helped finance his electoral victory.

The 69-year-old, who has denounced the ruling as “injustice”, has appealed the decision but will still be incarcerated at Paris’s La Sainte prison.

“If they absolutely want me to sleep in prison, I will sleep in prison, but with my head held high”, Sarkozy said following the September 25 verdict.

He will be the first French leader to be jailed since Philippe Petain, the Nazi collaborationist head of the Vichy regime during World War 11.

Sources told AFP that Sarkozy will likely be placed in a nine-square-metre solitary confinement cell to ensure he avoids interaction with other inmates or being secretly photographed with smuggle mobile phones.