Sarkozy’s election marked a generational change for France: Born in Paris in 1955, he was France’s first president with no memory of World War II. A conservative, Sarkozy beat Socialist candidate Ségolène Royal in the election's second-round run-off, thwarting her bid to become France's first woman president.

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy waved to supporters as he left his Paris home to begin a five-year prison term for conspiring to raise campaign funds from Libya.

At La Santé prison in Paris, which in the past has housed leftist militant Carlos the Jackal and Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega, Sarkozy will likely be held in the isolation unit, where inmates are...