A court in Paris will decide whether to release France's former President Nicolas Sarkozy from prison on Monday, just 20 days after he was incarcerated.

Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday called his imprisonment a "nightmare" as prosecutors requested the former French president be released from jail pending an appeals trial over Libyan funding.

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