However, the Paris appeals court ruled that he could serve his time at home wearing a tag instead of going to jail.

In 2021 Sarkozy was sentenced to three years in prison – including two suspended – for trying to influence a judge in a separate case.

The 68-year-old was the first former French president to get a custodial sentence.

Following Wednesday’s ruling, Sarkozy’s lawyer said she would launch a new challenge with the Court of Cassation, one of France’s highest authorities.

“Nicolas Sarkozy is innocent,” lawyer Jacqueline Laffont said. “We will take this all the way.”

The former president has been convicted of attempting to obtain information from a senior judge in 2014 – after he had left office.

The case centred on phone conversations between Sarkozy and his lawyer at the time that were taped by police. Prosecutors convinced the court that Sarkozy offered the judge a prestigious job in Monaco in return for information about investigations into his 2007 campaign.

The judge and lawyer in question were also sentenced to three years in jail, two of them suspended.

It is one of several corruption cases involving Sarkozy, who denies any wrongdoing.

Earlier this month, prosecutors requested that he should face trial over allegations that the Libyan government illegally contributed to his 2007 presidential bid. But in France, investigating magistrates have the last word over whether a case should go to trial.

Sarkozy’s legal travails have put an end to his political career, but he retains lingering influence on the right.

His Republican party is in disarray and for many he remains a historic point of reference. Those who see him as the victim of a judicial establishment biased towards the left will stick by him regardless.

Nicolas Sarkozy served one five-year term as president, until 2012. He adopted tough anti-immigration policies and sought to reform France’s economy during a presidency overshadowed by the global financial crisis.

Critics nicknamed him “bling-bling”, seeing his leadership style as too brash, celebrity-driven and hyperactive for a role steeped in tradition and grandeur.

Tulip Siddiq, who as the Treasury’s Economic Secretary is responsible for tackling corruption in UK financial markets, is alleged to have brokered a deal with Russia in 2013 for a new nuclear power plant in Bangladesh that saw £1bn siphoned off into private hands.

The allegation is part of a wider investigation by Bangladesh’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) into Siddiq’s aunt, Sheikh Hasina, the recently deposed prime minister of the country who fled to India in August.

Siddiq has been approached for comment. The Labour Party and the Treasury declined to comment.

The investigation is based on a series of allegations made by Bobby Hajjaj, a senior political opponent of Hasina.

Siddiq has not had any contact with the ACC as part of the investigation.The ACC is also investigating several of Hasina’s family members, including Siddiq’s mother Sheikh Rehana Siddiq, and senior officials from her government.

Hasina, who was in charge of Bangladesh for more than 20 years, was seen as an autocrat whose government ruthlessly clamped down on dissent.Since fleeing the country Hasina has been accused of multiple crimes by the new Bangladeshi government.

Hasina is wanted by Bangladesh’s International Criminal Tribunal (ICT) for her alleged involvements in “crimes against humanity” that took place during the demonstrations, in which hundreds were killed.

Arrest warrants have also been issued for 45 others, including former government ministers who also fled the country.

Syed Faruk, who runs the UK branch of Hasina’s Awami League party, said the claims were “fabricated”.

Siddiq was elected MP for Hampstead and Highgate in 2015, the north London constituency neighbouring Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s seat of Holborn and St Pancras.

Court documents seen show Hajjaj accused Siddiq of mediating and coordinating meetings for the Bangladeshi officials with the Russian government to build the £10bn Rooppur Power Plant Project.

It is claimed that the deal inflated the price of the plant by £1bn, according to the documents – 30% of which was allegedly distributed to Siddiq and other family members via a complex network of banks and overseas companies.

In total, Hajjaj alleges £3.9bn was siphoned out of the project by Hasina’s family and minister.

Footage from 2013 shows Siddiq attended the deal’s signing by Hasina and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin, recorded by the Associated Press.

Wednesday’s ruling by the Cour de Cassation means that Sarkozy – who was in power from 2007 to 2012 – must now wear an electronic monitoring bracelet for a year.Sarkozy, 69, reacted by saying he was not prepared to accept “the profound injustice” and would now turn to the European Court of Human Rights to challenge the verdict.

He was originally sentenced to three years in jail in 2021, but two of those years were suspended and the third converted to electronic monitoring instead of prison.

Sarkozy was convicted of trying to bribe a judge in 2014, after he had left office, by suggesting he could secure a prestigious job for him in return for information about a separate case.In the 2021 ruling, Judge Christine Mée said the conservative politician “knew what [he] was doing was wrong”, adding that his actions and those of his lawyer had given the public “a very bad image of justice”.

The crimes were specified as influence-peddling and violation of professional secrecy.Speaking after Wednesday’s verdict by the Cour de Cassation, Sarkozy’s lawyer, Patrice Spinosi, said his client would comply with the conviction terms.

Sarkozy has now exhausted all his legal options in France, and his planned appeal to the European Court of Human Rights will not delay the verdict from being carried out.The 2021 conviction was a legal landmark for post-war France.

The only precedent was the trial of Sarkozy’s predecessor Jacques Chirac, who got a two-year suspended sentence in 2011 for having arranged bogus jobs at Paris city hall for allies when he was Paris mayor. Chirac died in 2019.

Alexander Smirnov, 44, also admitted tax evasion after not reporting more than $2m (£1.58m) in income.

His claims became the basis of an impeachment investigation in Congress which centred around the false claims that the Bidens made millions in bribes from Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company.

But Smirnov admitted he made the story up, and pleaded guilty in Los Angeles on Monday as part of an agreement with prosecutors.

Smirnov, a dual US-Israeli citizen, had been an FBI informant for more than a decade when he made the allegations about the Bidens in June 2020, saying that Joe and Hunter Biden each received $5m from the energy company.

Prosecutors said Smirnov was motivated by “bias” against President Biden and that he spun his “routine and unextraordinary business contacts” with Burisma into tales about bribery that were “fabrications”.

The FBI investigated his statements but within months recommended the case be closed without any legal action taken against the Bidens.

But the allegations refused to die, and became the basis for a Republican-led drive to investigate President Biden, including an effort to make Smirnov’s initial statement public.Prosecutors say that when he was re-interviewed by FBI agents in September 2023, Smirnov doubled down on his claims.

Smirnov was arrested in Nevada as he returned to the US from an overseas trip in February 2024.

According to court documents, he had ties with Russian intelligence and used his more than $2m in unreported income to buy a Las Vegas condominium, a lease on a Bentley car, and hundreds of thousands of dollars of clothes, jewellery and accessories.

The case was brought by Special Counsel David Weiss – who has overseen an investigation of Hunter Biden.Joe Biden issued a pardon for his son, who faced potential prison time for tax evasion and lying on a form about his drug addiction when he bought a gun.

Smirnov will be sentenced in January. The plea agreement is subject to approval by a federal judge.

He faces a maximum sentence of 35 years in prison and a $1m fine, however prosecutors and defence lawyers have agreed to a sentence of between four and six years and a restitution payment of $675,502, according to the plea deal.