Nicolas Sarkozy Preparing to Release Prison Memoir Documenting Three Weeks In Custody
Nicolas Sarkozy is preparing a book in the coming weeks called Diary of a Prisoner, detailing his experience spent in jail.
The announcement was made shortly following Sarkozy gained freedom while he appeals his conviction on charges of unlawful coordination in a case to acquire political financing linked to the government of former Libyan leader.
Time in Custody: Personal Reflections
“Behind bars there is nothing to see, and nothing to do,” he notes in an extract, implying the book is more about his reflections during isolation rather than extensive analysis regarding the overcrowded and crisis-hit French prison system.
“Silence escapes me, which is missing in La Santé, where noise is a lot to hear,” he adds. “The racket unfortunately never stops. But, just like the desert, one’s inner world is strengthened while incarcerated.”
Release Hearing: Recounting the Hardship
While appealing for release, the former leader was present by video link from inside the facility, describing his time inside as draining. He had told the court: “I wish to commend to all the prison staff, who are exceptionally humane, easing this ordeal tolerable – because it is a nightmare.”
“I never imagined that at 70 years of age, I would end up incarcerated. It’s a hardship I must endure. It’s challenging, I acknowledge, deeply straining. It leaves a mark all who experience it as it’s exhausting.”
Unprecedented Situation
The former president, who served as France’s president from 2007 to 2012, was the first former head from the EU and the first postwar leader in the French Republic to experience jail.
Before entering jail he declared he planned to utilize the opportunity to compose an account.
Books in Prison
It remains unclear if he found the opportunity to review and analyze the three books he took into prison: a life story of Jesus spanning two books together with Dumas’s work the famous story, in which a blameless person is imprisoned but escapes to exact retribution.
Life in Confinement
He remained in isolation for his own security in a cell approximately nine square meters including private facilities at the correctional facility located in the capital. Security personnel occupied an adjacent room.
Reports indicated that he consumed solely dairy snacks in prison due to concerns any food might have been spat on. Options were available to cook for himself but refused this, as per accounts. Not known is if the memoir includes what he ate in prison.
Lawyer’s Statements
Sarkozy’s lawyer, who visited his client daily while he was in prison, told the release hearing he would be safer out of prison than inside. “He has faced menacing messages, listened to yells after dark and the urgent intervention in a neighbouring cell when a prisoner self-harmed.”
Legal Proceedings
Sarkozy went to prison on 21 October when a French court sentenced him to a five-year sentence for illegal collaboration in connection with efforts to obtain election financing during his election campaign.
He denies wrongdoing and has appealed against the verdict, and another court case planned for the coming spring.
