PARIS (AP) — Once the most powerful person in France, Nicolas Sarkozy, is now behind bars.

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.

Proudly tough on crime when he was in government, Sarkozy now has to adjust to the strict constraints of hours and days governed by penitentiary rules. He is appealing his conviction and maintains his innocence.

In sentencing Sarkozy to five years in prison for plotting to finance his 2007 campaign with funds from Libya, judges took a swing at privilege and impunity in France and signaled that all people are equal before the law.

But the newest of more than 80,000 inmates in French prisons is the only one who used to command the country’s nuclear arsenal.

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