Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has been released from jail, three weeks into a five-year prison term for taking part in a criminal conspiracy.

He will be subject to strict judicial supervision and barred from leaving France.

Sarkozy’s car was seen leaving La Santé prison in Paris just before 15:00 (14:00 GMT), less than an hour-and-a-half after a court agreed to his early release. Soon after, he was seen arriving at his home in western Paris.

On 21 October, the former centre-right president, 70, was sentenced to five years for conspiring to fund his 2007 election campaign with money from late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

His legal team immediately filed a request seeking his release.

Christophe Ingrain, one of Sarkozy’s lawyers, hailed his client’s release as “a step forward” and said they would now be preparing for the appeal trial due to be held in March.

One of the conditions of Sarkozy’s release is that he does not contact any justice ministry employees.

During his incarceration, he was visited by Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin. The visit prompted 30 French lawyers to file a complaint against Darmanin, highlighting what they said was a conflict of interest as Darmanin was a former colleague and friend of Sarkozy’s.

Speaking to a court in Paris via video link, Sarkozy described his time in solitary confinement as “gruelling” and “a nightmare”.

Public prosecutor Damien Brunet recommended that Sarkozy’s request for release be granted, but that the former president be banned from contacting other witnesses in the so-called “Libyan dossier”.

Sarkozy, who has always denied any wrongdoing, told the court via video link that he had never had the “mad idea” of asking Gaddafi for money and stated he would “never admit to something I haven’t done”.

Sarkozy also paid tribute to prison staff who had made his time in prison “bearable”. “They have shown exceptional humanity,” he said.

Sarkozy’s wife, the singer and model Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, and two of the former president’s sons were present in the courtroom to support him.

Sarkozy is the first French ex-leader placed behind bars since World War Two Nazi collaborationist leader Philippe Pétain was jailed for treason in 1945.

Since entering prison, Sarkozy has been held in a cell in the isolation wing.

He had a toilet, a shower, a desk, a small electric hob and a small TV – for which he paid a monthly €14 (£12) fee – and the right to a small fridge.

He also had the right to receive information from the outside world and family visits as well as written and phone contact – but was is in effect in solitary confinement. He was allowed just one hour a day for exercise, by himself in the wing’s segregated courtyard.

Two bodyguards were stationed in nearby cells, which the interior minister Laurent Nuñez was due to Sarkozy’s status. There was “obviously a threat against him”, Nuñez said.

Sarkozy was president from 2007-2012. Ever since he left office, he has been dogged by criminal inquiries and for months had to wear an electronic tag around his ankle after a conviction last December for trying to bribe a magistrate for confidential information about a separate case.

Source: BBC

French prosecutors on Monday told former French president Nicolas Sarkozy that he must report to a Paris prison on October 21 to begin serving a five-year sentence for illegally accepting funds from late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to fund his 2007 presidential run.

Sarkozy will serve his sentence at Santé Prison in Paris pending his appeal, AFP reported, citing sources close to the proceedings.

The National Financial Prosecutor’s office told Sarkozy the specifics of his detention during a brief formal meeting on Monday afternoon. Sarkozy left the courthouse shortly afterward.

Sarkozy, 70, denies wrongdoing, and has called the verdict “a scandal”.

France’s leader from 2007 to 2012, Sarkozy was convicted in late September. The former president immediately appealed his conviction, with a new trial expected in the coming months.

He will be the first French postwar leader and the first former head of a European Union country to serve jail time.

Extra security measures are expected, with Sarkozy possibly placed in a unit for vulnerable prisoners or held in solitary confinement.

Once in custody, his lawyers can petition the appeals court for his release, but he will remain in custody unless it decides otherwise.

During the trial, prosecutors argued Sarkozy and his aides, acting with his authority and in his name, struck a deal with Gaddafi in 2005 to illegally fund his victorious presidential election bid two years later.

Investigators believe that in return, Gaddafi was promised help in restoring his international image after the West blamed Tripoli for bombing a plane in 1988 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and another over Niger in 1989, killing hundreds of passengers.

The court’s ruling found he was guilty of criminal conspiracy, with presiding judge Nathalie Gavarino saying the offences were of “exceptional gravity”.

Source: AFP

President Volodymyr Zelensky says Ukraine has been hit by the biggest ever aerial attack from Russia – 728 drones and 13 cruise or ballistic missiles hit cities around the country in multiple waves.

Zelensky condemned the “telling attack”, adding: “It comes precisely at a time when so many efforts have been made to achieve peace, to establish a ceasefire, and yet only Russia continues to rebuff them all.”

The overnight strike came after President Donald Trump said the US would send more weapons to Kyiv – a reversal of last week’s suspension which US media said Trump had not known about.

On Tuesday, the US leader expressed growing frustration at Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth,” Trump told reporters. “He’s very nice to us all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was “pretty calm about this. Trump’s way of talking is generally quite harsh, the phrases he uses.”

The two leaders have been in regular contact but this has so far failed to translate into tangible steps towards a ceasefire in Ukraine – something Trump once said he would be able to achieve in a day.

Last week, following a phone call with the Russian president, Trump said he was “very unhappy”.

“He wants to go all the way, just keep killing people, it’s no good,” Trump said of Putin.

The criticism came even as the Trump administration announced a suspension of military aid to Ukraine, reportedly authorised by US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and Elbridge Colby, the under-secretary of defence for policy.

Asked by reporters on Tuesday who had taken the decision, Trump – sitting right next to Hegseth – replied: “I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?”

The reversal of the decision may now mean that 10 Patriot missiles may be sent to Ukraine, according to US outlet Axios.

Kyiv relies on the interceptors to try to counter Russia’s missile and drone attacks, which continue to grow in intensity and frequency.

On Tuesday Trump also said he was “looking at” a sanctions bill by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham that would see 500% tariffs imposed on countries that trade with Russia.

Trump has been threatening sanctions on Russia since taking office in January but has so far failed to impose any. In June, he stated that he pointed out sanctions “cost a lot of money” and signalled he was waiting to see whether a deal between Russia and Ukraine would be signed instead.

However, last week the US president said he and Putin had discussed sanctions “a lot” and added: “He understands it may be coming.”

Although the east of the country and Kyiv come under fire on a regular basis, no corner of Ukraine has been spared by Russian strikes.

The city of Lutsk – which lies 90km (56 miles) from the Polish border and is a transit hub for military and humanitarian aid – suffered the brunt of Tuesday’s overnight attack.

Explosions were also reported in the western cities of Lviv and Rivne.

For their part, Russian authorities have said that a Ukrainian drone attack on the border region of Kursk killed three people and injured seven others on Tuesday.

Two rounds of ceasefire talks between Russia and Ukraine took place earlier this year but no other meetings have so far been scheduled – and neither Moscow nor Kyiv appear optimistic that diplomacy will solve the conflict, which was sparked by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Meanwhile, Russia’s summer offensive in eastern Ukraine grinds on.

“We are moving forward,” said Peskov on Wednesday. “Each new day the Ukrainians have to accept the new realities.”

Source: BBC

Russia’s Investigative Committee says former Russian transport minister Roman Starovoit has been found dead, apparently with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

He was dismissed earlier on Monday by President Vladimir Putin.

No reason for Starovoit’s dismissal was given and deputy transport minister Andrei Nikitin was announced as his replacement shortly after.

The Investigative Committee said it was working to establish the circumstances of the incident.

Starovoit was appointed minister of transport in May 2024.

Before that, Starovoit had served as governor of the Kursk region for almost six years, until May 2024.

The region was partly seized by Ukrainian troops in August 2024 in a surprise offensive. Moscow only recently managed to drive out the Ukrainian forces, although in late June Kyiv said it was still holding a small area of territory inside Russia.

Starovoit’s successor, Aleksey Smirnov, was only in post for a short while. He was arrested in April and was later accused of embezzling funds that had been allocated for the building of fortifications on the border with Ukraine.

According to Russian outlet Kommersant, Starovoit was about to be brought in as a defendant in the same case.

It is unclear when, exactly, Starovoit died.

The head of the State Duma Defence Committee, Andrei Kartapolov, told Russian outlet RTVI that his death occurred “quite a while ago”.

Earlier on Monday, before Starovoit’s death was announced, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was pressed by reporters on whether the dismissal meant Putin had lost trust in Starovoit over the events in Kursk.

“A loss of trust is mentioned if there is a loss of trust. Such wording was not used [in the Kremlin decree],” Peskov replied.

Source: BBC

Tens of thousands of passengers have been hit by a French air traffic control strike that has cancelled flights in France on Thursday and Friday and had a knock-on effect elsewhere in Europe.

Budget airline Ryanair said it had been forced to cancel more than 170 flights and the holiday plans of more than 30,000 passengers had been disrupted.

Two French unions were staging the two-day strike over working conditions, leading to a quarter of flights being cancelled at the main airports in Paris and half of flights at Nice airport.

French Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot condemned as unacceptable both the unions’ demands and their decision to go on strike at such an important time for people going on holiday.

Ryanair said the strike had affected not only its flights to and from France, but also aircraft flying over French airspace to destinations including the UK, Ireland, Spain and Greece.

Its chief executive, Michael O’Leary, accused the air traffic controllers of “holding European families to ransom”.

“It makes no sense and is abundantly unfair on EU passengers going on holidays,” he complained, calling on European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to take “urgent action” to ensure minimum service levels during strikes and to protect flights going through French airspace from domestic industrial action.

France’s civil aviation authority, DGAC, asked airlines to reduce flight schedules at several airports across the country.

Disruption is expected to worsen at French airports on Friday, with 40% fewer flights from the Paris airports at Charles de Gaulle, Orla and Beauvais.

The strike was called by the UNSA-ICNA union, which cited staffing shortages, management issues and the planned introduction of a controversial clock-in system for controllers among its concerns. Talks with the DGAC earlier this week failed to resolve the dispute.

Airlines for Europe (A4E), the continent’s leading aviation body, described the strike as “intolerable”, warning that it would severely disrupt travel plans at the height of the holiday season.

EasyJet, another low-cost carrier affected by the disruption, expressed “deep disappointment” and urged a resolution.

Ryanair said on Wednesday it also had been hit by the recent conflict in the Middle East and had cancelled more than 800 flights last month.

Despite the cancellations, the airline said it still operated more than 109,000 flights in June, indicating that fewer than 1% of flights were affected.

Source: BBC

Russia launched its biggest aerial attack against Ukraine overnight, a Ukrainian official said Sunday, part of an escalating bombing campaign that has further dashed hopes for a breakthrough in efforts to end the 3-year-old war.

Russia fired a total of 537 aerial weapons at Ukraine, including 477 drones and decoys and 60 missiles, Ukraine’s air force said. Of these, 249 were shot down and 226 were lost, likely having been electronically jammed.

The onslaught was “the most massive air strike” on the country since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, taking into account both drones and various types of missiles, Yuriy Ihnat, head of communications for Ukraine’s air force, told The Associated Press. The attack targeted several regions, including western Ukraine, far from the front line.

Poland and allied countries scrambled aircraft to ensure the safety of Polish airspace, the country’s air force said.

One person died in a drone strike in the Kherson region, Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin said, while another was killed when a drone hit a car in the Kharkiv region, according to its Gov. Oleh Syniehubov. Six people were wounded in Cherkasy, including a child, according to regional Gov. Ihor Taburets.

In the far-western Lviv region, a large fire broke out at an industrial facility in the city of Drohobych following a drone attack that also cut electricity to parts of the city.

Source: AP

Russian strikes killed at least 14 people and wounded dozens in Kyiv in what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday called “one of the most horrific attacks” on the capital.

Zelensky said “an entire section of an apartment block” was destroyed and rescuers were searching under the rubble for possible survivors.

AFP journalists heard drones flying over the city and explosions ringing out as Ukrainian air defence systems opened fire during the Russian barrage.

Dozens of Kyiv residents were taking shelter in a metro station in central Kyiv, sleeping on mats, exchanging information on the drone and missile threat or reassuring pets, AFP journalists reported.

Some 27 locations in Kyiv were hit, Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said.

One person was also killed and 10 wounded in a strike on Odesa, with Zelensky saying that a total of 440 drones and 32 missiles were used in the strikes nationwide.

“Kyiv has faced one of the most horrific attacks,” Zelensky wrote on Facebook.

“Right now in Kyiv, efforts are underway to rescue people from under the rubble of an ordinary residential building — it’s still unclear how many remain trapped,” he said.

He urged the international community not to “turn a blind eye”.

Russian President Vladimir “Putin does this solely because he can afford to continue the war. He wants the war to go on,” he said.

Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said in a social media post: “This is how Russia fights — it kills civilians in ordinary homes, deliberately.”

Source: AFP

Several people have been killed in a shooting at a secondary school in the Austrian city of Graz, police say.

Students and teachers are believed to be among the casualties after gunshots at the Dreierschützengasse high school.

According to tabloid Kronen Zeitung eight people have been killed, but the number of fatalities has not been confirmed by officials yet

A police spokesman tells public broadcaster ORF the suspected gunman is believed to have killed himself

Police say an operation is under way and a helicopter has been deployed.

Source: BBC