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.

Being locked up in Paris' La Santé prison for criminal conspiracy is the latest twist in the uncommon life of the 70-year-old former president.

Judges involved in the case have been targeted on social media, with some receiving death threats, according to the president of Paris’s Court of Appeal, Jacques Boulard.