Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been released from prison, French media reports.

We recall that on Monday, the Prosecutor's Office requested the Paris Court of Appeal to release the former head of state, who had been imprisoned for twenty days in the Santé prison in Paris, following his conviction in the case of the Libyan financing of his presidential campaign.

Sarkozy's lawyer described the Court's decision as a"normal application of the law of the Code of Criminal Procedure".

"The next step is the appeal process. Our task, Nicolas Sarkozy's and ours, is to prepare for this appeal hearing ," added Christophe Ingrain.

The former French president enjoyed, throughout his detention (which he described as"a nightmare"), a multitude of encouragement and messages of support.

Hundreds or thousands of letters received in prison

Hundreds or even thousands of letters arrived daily at the prison where Sarkozy was incarcerated.

The purses are piling up in the offices of La Santé prison. For two weeks, the Parisian detention center had not seen such activity: several hundred letters arrive daily, sometimes even a thousand, all addressed to a single inmate,  Nicolas Sarkozy . The former head of state has been imprisoned there since October 21, in connection with the case of alleged Libyan financing of his 2007 campaign.

According to his team at X, the letters are arriving at a rapid pace from all over France and abroad. Messages of encouragement, prayers, thanks or simply words of affection… The expressions of support number in the thousands."Resist, I pray for you","Stay strong, you are not alone" read some of the letters circulating on social networks. The wave of messages of support is so great that the postal clerk, responsible for sorting the correspondence at the prison, is struggling to deliver it all to the former president's cell.

Context

The 70-year-old conservative former president was found guilty of criminal conspiracy over efforts by his inner circle to obtain funds for his 2007 presidential campaign from the late dictator Muammar Gaddafi. He was acquitted of all other charges, including corruption and receiving illegal campaign financing.

Sarkozy's prison sentence was carried out immediately because of the"extraordinary gravity" of the crime, Judge Nathalie Gavarino told the court. He was incarcerated last month at La Sante prison in Paris - a spectacular fall for a man who led France from 2007 to 2012.