The former French president Nicolas Sarkozy is expected to begin serving his prison sentence in Paris next week, following a court decision last month sentencing him to five years in prison. The Correctional Tribunal of Paris found Sarkozy guilty of a criminal association with an organized scheme to illegally finance his 2007 presidential election campaign.

The 70-year-old, who used to be the rightwing president of France between 2007 and 2012, will be the first former head of a European Union country to go to jail. Previously, he had already been the first convicted former French head of state to wear an electronic tag following a separate case of corruption over illegal attempts to secure favors from a judge. He is likely to be held in Paris’ La Santé prison’s special wing for vulnerable prisoners, which affords him a single-person cell, three visits a week, and one hour of exercise a day, and separation from other prisoners.

Sarkozy has to date denied any wrongdoing, pleading innocent and refuting the sentence, calling it a matter of “extreme gravity for the rule of law in the country” and declaring that he would fight “till his last breath” to prove his innocence. He reserves his right to petition the appeals court for his release, but due to the nature of the judgment, he will remain in prison until the decision is made in two months. Similar to that of opposition figure Marine Le Pen, his sentence includes a “provisory execution,” a provision in French law alloinng a decision to be executed even as it is being challenged before a superior court. This is an exception to the rule based on the principle of presumption of innocence. A new trial is expected in about six months.

In 2012, French news website Mediapart published a leaked document by the Libyan government, signed by former head of intelligence, Moussa Koussa, addressed to Muammar Gaddafi’s chief of staff, Bashir Saleh. The document states that the Libyan government secretly supported Sarkozy’s 2007 financial campaign with 50 million euros. At the time, Sarkozy sued Mediapart for forgery and use of forgery, which triggered an expert evaluation of the document that concluded it was probable that the document was legitimate.