The dramatic decision to send former president Nicolas Sarkozy to prison for criminal conspiracy has laid bare France's stark political divisions, with the move cheered by the left but slammed by the ascendant right.

Nicolas Sarkozy, once a dynamic and controversial leader who promised to transform France, has been sentenced to five years in prison for criminal conspiracy tied to illegal campaign funding from Libya.

French ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy's bombshell conviction in a Libyan funding probe has elicited starkly opposing reactions from left and right, exposing France's political divide.

Nicolas Sarkozy, former president of France, was sentenced to five years in prison over a plot to fund his election bid with help from the government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.