BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.

Hello, welcome to News Hour, coming to from the BBC World Service in London with me, Sean Lake.

Coming up this hour, one man's shock when he discovered that he was the grandson of the most powerful of Nazis, Heinrich Himmler.

In my case, it was like 47 years of my life, seemed to be like a lie.

But we're going to begin this hour in France.

Let's begin, in fact, with some archive from 1945,

after it had been liberated and the Second World War had ended.

Amid long arguments and recriminations,

the proceedings of the Petan trial have drawn out into weeks

with little appearance of interest by the Marshal himself.

British Pathet, recording the trial of Marshal Philippe Petin, wartime leader Vichy France,

who collaborated with the occupying Nazi forces.

Since then, no Western European head of state has found themselves in jail. Until now.

This morning, Nikola Sarkozy, president from 2007 to 2012, left home cheered by supporters hand in hand with his wife, the singer-songwriter Carla Bruni.

His destination, La Santee, prison in Paris. Mr. Sarkozy was convicted for conspiring to acquire

campaign funds from the Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi and sentenced to five years in prison.

He told the newspaper Le Figuero he would take with him two books,

The Life of Christ and the Count of Monte Cristo,

a famous fictional account of wrongful conviction in France.

You get the point.

At the time of his inauguration back in May 2007,

the new President Sarkozy said he was humbled to be the successor

...