A PARIS court today sentenced former French president Nicolas Sarkozy to five years in prison and said he’ll be incarcerated even if he appeals, after finding him guilty in his trial for alleged illegal campaign financing by Libya.

The court said the date of his incarceration will be decided later, sparing the former president the humiliation of being marched out of the courtroom by police officers and going straight to jail.

The court found Mr Sarkozy guilty of criminal association in a plot from 2005 to 2007 to finance his campaign with funds from Libya in exchange for diplomatic favours.

But it cleared him of three other charges — including passive corruption, illegal campaign financing and concealment of the embezzlement of public funds.

The court also found two of Mr Sarkozy’s closest associates when he was president — former ministers Claude Gueant and Brice Hortefeux — guilty of criminal association but likewise acquitted them of some other charges.

Overall, the court believed that the men conspired to seek Libyan funding for Mr Sarkozy’s 2007 campaign but that judges weren’t convinced that the conservative leader himself was directly involved in the funding effort or that any Libyan money ended up being used in his winning campaign.

But the court said it couldn’t determine with certainty that Libyan money ended up financing Mr Sarkozy’s campaign.