🔗 Share this article

The ex-president of France plans a personal account in the coming weeks named A Prisoner’s Diary, detailing his experience endured behind bars.

This news came less than two weeks after the ex-leader left prison while he contests the guilty verdict related to criminal conspiracy connected to efforts to obtain presidential race money provided by the regime of former Libyan leader.

Prison Experience: Inner Thoughts

“In prison visibility is limited, with little to occupy time,” he writes in a preview, implying the memoir centers around his reflections from isolation as opposed to wider commentary regarding the packed and troubled correctional facilities in the country.

“I forget silence, not present in that facility, where one hears a lot to hear,” he states. “The racket persists relentlessly. But, just like the desert, personal reflection is strengthened while incarcerated.”

Release Hearing: Recounting the Hardship

During his plea for freedom, he participated via screen from his cell, characterizing his incarceration as exhausting. He stated to the judge: “I wish to commend the correctional officers, who are exceptionally humane, and who helped make this difficult experience bearable – because it is a nightmare.”

“It never crossed my mind that in my seventies, I’d find myself behind bars. It’s an ordeal forced upon me. It’s challenging, I acknowledge, extremely tough. It affects one every inmate as it’s exhausting.”

First of Its Kind

The former president, who led the nation for a five-year term, set a precedent as ex-leader in the European Union and the initial post-WWII figure of France to experience jail.

Before entering jail he had said he would use his time to compose an account.

Cell Library

It is not certain if he found the opportunity to read and critique the volumes he brought with him: a biography of Jesus in two parts and Alexandre Dumas’s novel The Count of Monte Cristo, a plot where a blameless person is imprisoned later flees to exact retribution.

Life in Confinement

He was placed secluded to protect him in a cell roughly 100 square feet with his own shower and toilet at La Santé prison in Paris. Two bodyguards stayed in an adjacent room.

It was stated his diet consisted solely dairy snacks during his stay because he feared meals provided could have been tampered with. Options were available to prepare his own meals yet he declined, based on unnamed sources. Unclear remains whether Sarkozy will write about what he ate in prison.

Lawyer’s Statements

Sarkozy’s lawyer, who saw him regularly every day while he was in prison, informed the court security would be better out of prison compared to inside. “He received death threats, has heard screaming during nighttime plus rapid actions next door during an inmate’s self-injury.”

Legal Proceedings

He entered custody last month after a French court imposed a half-decade term for illegal collaboration over a scheme to obtain political donations for his presidential bid.

He disputes the charges and is contesting the ruling, and a fresh trial planned for the coming spring.