Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been sentenced to five years in prison for accepting campaign funds from former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

Sarkozy has become the first former French president to go to prison.

Philippe Pétain, a Nazi collaborator during World War II, was imprisoned for treason in 1945, but no former French leader has been imprisoned since.

Sarkozy has argued that the charges against him in Europe in 2007, alleging that he received money from Gaddafi for his presidential campaign, are "politically motivated."

However, the country's highest court has sentenced Sarkozy's close aides, Brice Hortefaux and Claude Guenthe, to prison for allegedly contacting Libyan officials to solicit campaign funding.

The two individuals reportedly met with Gaddafi's security chief and son-in-law in 2005 at a meeting arranged by a French-Libyan citizen named Ziad Thiakdine.

Thiakdine died before Sarkozy's trial.

Sarkozy, who led France from 2007 to 2012, was sentenced to five years in La Santé prison and has appealed.

Sarkozy claims he is innocent of the crime, but was sentenced to life in prison due to the "seriousness of the evidence".