Former French Prime Minister Francois Fillon and his wife Penelope will appeal a French court decision finding them guilty of embezzlement of public funds, their lawyer Antonin Levy said on Monday shortly after the sentence was pronounced.

Levy said the sentence was unfair, that there was a conspiracy against the couple and promised there would be a new trial.

Fillon was sentenced to five years in jail, with three of them suspended, and fined 375,000 euros for embezzling public funds. The court handed Penelope Fillon a three-year suspended sentence and fined her the same amount.