Former president Nicolas Sarkozy is in prison, nearly a month after his conviction for criminal conspiracy in the so-called “Libyan case” — an unprecedented detention in the history of the French Republic.

“He will be there for at least three weeks to a month,” said his lawyer Christophe Ingrain outside Paris’s La Santé prison, after accompanying his client inside. Sarkozy has filed a request for release, and the Paris Court of Appeal now has two months to rule on it.