A French court found former President Nicolas Sarkozy guilty of corruption and attempted bribery of a judge. He was sentenced to three years in prison, but two of them were suspended.
The court ruling says Sarkozy could spend a year at home and wear an electronic bracelet instead of going to jail.
The same sentence was received by the lawyer of the ex-President Thierry Herzog.
Sarkozy, 66, denies the charges and considers them harassment by political opponents. As the BBC correspondent in France Lucy Williamson, passing the verdict, the judge said that Sarkozy "knew that he was doing wrong."
Until now, the President of France has been on trial only once after the expiration of his powers, but he has never been in prison.
Sarkozy's predecessor, Jacques Chirac, was found guilty of hiring friends for fictitious positions when he was mayor of Paris. However, Chirac, under which Sarkozy rose to the French political Olympus, did not participate in the 2011 trial due to illness. He was convicted in absentia and received a two-year suspended sentence.
What is Sarkozy accused of
Investigators first became interested in funding both the 2007 and 2012 election campaigns. They suspected that Sarkozy spent more than he should have and accepted illegal donations from L'Oreal co-owner of the billionaire Liliane Bettencourt and allegedly even from the Libyan leader Gaddafi.
Accusations of receiving millions of euros in cash from Gaddafi were recently withdrawn by the applicant, and the case of tens of thousands of euros from Betancourt fell apart in court.
However, other charges were brought against Sarkozy - this time of corruption and abuse of office. According to investigators, as president, he tried to influence the investigation of the Betancourt donation case and allegedly offered Judge Gilbert Azibert a promotion and a "warm place" in Monaco in exchange for information on the progress of the investigation.
The accusation is based on the recordings of telephone conversations between Sarkozy and his lawyer Thierry Erzog, who ended up in the dock with the ex-president.
The series of legal proceedings will not end there. A new trial is scheduled for March, where Sarkozy and his 13 associates will have to answer charges of illegal financing of the 2012 election campaign.
Sarkozy is suspected of being involved in a fraud that resulted in him being able to nearly double the legal spending limit for a lost election campaign.
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