🔗 Share this article

Nicolas Sarkozy is preparing a personal account this autumn titled Diary of a Prisoner, detailing his experience served in jail.

The announcement came shortly after the former president was released as he contests the guilty verdict for unlawful coordination in a case to secure presidential race money provided by the government of the late Libyan dictator.

Time in Custody: Personal Reflections

“Behind bars one sees little, and nothing to do,” he notes in an extract, suggesting the book will focus on his thoughts while in solitary confinement as opposed to a broader observation of the strained and crisis-hit correctional facilities in the country.

“Quiet is absent, not present in La Santé, where noise is a lot to hear,” he continues. “The racket unfortunately never stops. Yet, similar to barren lands, personal reflection is strengthened behind bars.”

Court Appearance: Sharing the Struggle

During his plea for freedom, he participated remotely from a room in prison, depicting prison life as exhausting. He expressed in court: “I wish to commend the correctional officers, who are exceptionally humane, and who helped make this ordeal tolerable – since it’s deeply troubling.”

“It never crossed my mind that in my seventies, I’d find myself behind bars. It’s a trial I must endure. It’s challenging, I acknowledge, it’s very hard. It affects one every inmate due to its intensity.”

Unprecedented Situation

Sarkozy, the ex-head of state between 2007 and 2012, was the first former head of an EU country and the first postwar leader of France to be incarcerated.

Prior to imprisonment he had said he planned to utilize the opportunity to write a book.

Books in Prison

Unconfirmed is if he found the opportunity to go through the volumes he brought with him: a life story of Jesus spanning two books and Alexandre Dumas’s novel The Count of Monte Cristo, in which a blameless person is imprisoned then breaks out to take revenge.

Prison Conditions

He was held in solitary confinement due to safety concerns in a room of about nine sq metres including private facilities in the Paris jail in Paris. Security personnel occupied the next cell.

Sources mentioned that he consumed just yogurt during his stay worried that prison cuisine might have been spat on. He had facilities to prepare his own meals yet he declined, based on unnamed sources. Not known is whether Sarkozy will write about his dietary choices.

Defense Viewpoint

His attorney, Christophe Ingrain each day while he was in prison, told the release hearing security would be better outside jail than inside. “He received death threats, has heard screaming during nighttime and emergency responses next door when a prisoner self-harmed.”

Charges and Sentence

His incarceration began in late October after the judiciary gave him a half-decade term for illegal collaboration in connection with efforts to acquire political donations for his 2007 presidential race.

He denies wrongdoing and is contesting the ruling, and another court case set for early next year.