Frankly I see this as proof positive that he was only goading the court into giving him death, and now that he has not gotten it he wants to get off.

Now, he'll go to Colorado for a bit, the French will demand he be extradited to France as a French citizen to serve his sentence there, then he'll probably get released in some trade for hostages or for some other BS reason. And if not, well, he'll just spend the rest of his life in a French prison. (Or that's what was predicted by one of the talking heads (voices?) on BBC World Service a couple days ago...)

The bright side is that according to the law, since he was given life without chance of release, he can't appeal that decision. The death penalty would've brought automatic appeal, but life, well, he's stuck for it (for a bit).