Nicolas Sarkozy Set to Write Prison Memoir Documenting Two Dozen Days In Custody
Nicolas Sarkozy plans a personal account next month named A Prisoner’s Diary, chronicling his experience served in custody.
This news came less than two weeks following the former president left prison while he contests the court ruling for illegal collaboration regarding a scheme to secure presidential race money from the leadership of former Libyan leader.
Prison Experience: Inner Thoughts
“In prison visibility is limited, and activities are scarce,” he notes in a preview, indicating the book will focus on his musings while in solitary confinement instead of wider commentary on the overcrowded and struggling jail system in France.
“Quiet is absent, which doesn’t exist at the prison, where one hears endless commotion,” he adds. “The racket is alas constant. However, akin to empty spaces, inner life is fortified in prison.”
Court Appearance: Recounting the Hardship
While appealing for release, Sarkozy participated by video link from his cell, describing his time inside as exhausting. He had told the court: “I want to pay tribute to all the prison staff, showing great humanity, and who helped make this nightmare tolerable – because it is a nightmare.”
“I never imagined that in my seventies, I’d find myself behind bars. It’s an ordeal forced upon me. I admit it’s difficult, extremely tough. It affects one all who experience it due to its intensity.”
Historical Context
Sarkozy, who led the nation for a five-year term, set a precedent as past president in the European Union and the first leader since WWII of France to experience jail.
Ahead of his incarceration he had said he intended to spend the period to compose an account.
Cell Library
Unconfirmed is did he manage to read and critique the texts he took into prison: a biography of Jesus in two parts together with Dumas’s work the famous story, a plot where a blameless person is imprisoned then breaks out to take revenge.
Life in Confinement
He was placed in isolation to protect him in a room of about nine sq metres including private facilities in the Paris jail in Paris. Two bodyguards occupied a neighbouring cell.
Reports indicated that he consumed just yogurt during his stay because he feared meals provided could have been tampered with. Options were available for self-catering but he turned this down, based on unnamed sources. It is uncertain whether Sarkozy will write about what he ate in prison.
Legal Perspective
His attorney, who saw him regularly each day throughout the jail term, told the release hearing his safety would improve out of prison than inside. “There were menacing messages, listened to yells at night plus rapid actions in a neighbouring cell during an inmate’s self-injury.”
Charges and Sentence
He entered custody in late October when the judiciary gave him five years in prison for criminal conspiracy related to a plan to obtain election financing during his election campaign.
He disputes the charges and has appealed against the verdict, with a new trial planned for next spring.
