Nicolas Sarkozy, the former French president has entered a prison in Paris, after a court sentenced him to five years for criminal conspiracy over a scheme to obtain election campaign funds from the regime of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

Sarkozy, the rightwing president of France between 2007 and 2012, is the first former head of an EU country to serve time in prison, and the first French postwar leader to be jailed.

Sarkozy, who has appealed against his conviction, had sought to avoid being photographed at the gates of La Santé prison in the south of Paris. Instead, he organised a highly stage-managed departure from his home in the west of Paris where he walked on foot with his wife, the singer Carla Bruni, to greet crowds gathered to in the street outside his home.

First his children, led by Giulia, his 14-year-old daughter with Bruni, slowly walked from his home to greet well-wishers. Louis Sarkozy, one of Sarkozy’s sons, who is preparing to run for mayor in Menton on the French Riviera next spring, had called for supporters to demonstrate in the street. Some shouted “Nicolas! Nicolas!” At the same time, Sarkozy’s social media account published a message in which he stated that: “I am innocent”, and his imprisonment was a “judicial scandal”.

Sarkozy was found guilty last month of criminal conspiracy over a scheme to seek funding from the regime of Gaddafi for his victorious 2007 French presidential election campaign.