THE date for Nicolas Sarkozy’s imprisonment will be set tomorrow after the right-wing former French president was sentenced to five years in prison for criminal conspiracy in a scheme to finance his winning 2007 campaign with funds from Libya.

Mr Sarkozy maintains his innocence, has denounced the verdict as “a scandal” and filed an appeal.

He is the first former president of modern France sentenced to actual time behind bars.

Mr Sarkozy, who was involved in several other legal cases, was France’s president from 2007 to 2012. He has been retired from active politics for years but remains influential, especially in right-wing circles.

In a surprise decision, the Paris court said the prison sentence, which would otherwise have been suspended on appeal, is effective immediately.

Mr Sarkozy must be incarcerated without delay, the court explained, because “of the seriousness of the disruption to public order caused by the offence.”

Still, Mr Sarkozy was given 18 days from the ruling to “organise his professional life” before his summoning by the National Financial Prosecutor’s office to set a date for incarceration.

The court said Mr 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 Muammar Gadaffi.

Adding to the deep sense of political crisis in France, the country’s current President Emmanuel Macron renamed Sebastien Lecornu as prime minister late on Friday just days after he stepped down and sparked a week of chaos.

A statement from the French Communist Party (PCF) described the reappointment of Mr Lecornu as an illustration of President Macron’s “refusal to change course.”

The PCF called for a broad mobilisation of unions, youth and other forces and that the time has come “to give the power over money, production and the Republic back to the people.”