Nicolas Sarkozy Preparing to Release Jail Diary Documenting Three Weeks Incarcerated
The ex-president of France will soon publish a personal account next month named Notes from a Cell, detailing the period spent in custody.
The announcement emerged shortly after the ex-leader left prison while his appeal proceeds the court ruling on charges of illegal collaboration in a case to obtain presidential race money from the regime of Muammar Gaddafi.
Time in Custody: Solitary Musings
“Inside jail visibility is limited, and nothing to do,” he writes in one passage, implying the account will focus on his reflections during solitary confinement as opposed to wider commentary on the overcrowded and troubled French prison system.
“Silence escapes me, which doesn’t exist in La Santé, where noise is a lot to hear,” he continues. “The din unfortunately never stops. However, akin to empty spaces, inner life is strengthened behind bars.”
Court Appearance: Sharing the Struggle
During his plea for freedom, the former leader participated remotely from a room in prison, depicting prison life as exhausting. He had told the court: “I want to pay tribute those working in the jail, who are exceptionally humane, and who helped make this ordeal tolerable – because it is a nightmare.”
“I never imagined that in my seventies, I would end up incarcerated. It’s an ordeal that has been imposed on me. It’s challenging, I acknowledge, deeply straining. It has an impact every inmate due to its intensity.”
Unprecedented Situation
He, the ex-head of state between 2007 and 2012, set a precedent as past president in the European Union and the first leader since WWII of France to be incarcerated.
Prior to imprisonment he mentioned he would use his time to compose an account.
Reading Material
Unconfirmed is did he manage to go through the texts he had in his cell: a biography of Jesus in two parts together with Dumas’s work the famous story, a plot where a blameless person ends up incarcerated but escapes to take revenge.
Daily Reality
The former leader remained in isolation to protect him in a space of about nine sq metres featuring a personal bathroom in the Paris jail in Paris. Two bodyguards occupied a neighbouring cell.
Reports indicated that he had eaten just yogurt in prison worried that meals provided could have been tampered with. Options were available to prepare his own meals yet he declined, as per accounts. It is uncertain if he will detail what he ate in prison.
Defense Viewpoint
Sarkozy’s lawyer, who saw him regularly every day while he was in prison, told the release hearing security would be better out of prison compared to inside. “He has faced threats against his life, listened to yells at night and emergency responses in a neighbouring cell when a prisoner self-harmed.”
Case Background
He entered custody on 21 October when a Paris court gave him five years in prison for criminal conspiracy related to a plan to secure election financing for his presidential bid.
He maintains his innocence and is contesting the ruling, and another court case set for next spring.
