Nicolas Sarkozy Preparing to Release Jail Diary Chronicling His 20 Days In Custody

Nicolas Sarkozy is preparing a book next month called Notes from a Cell, chronicling his experience served in custody.

The announcement emerged just 11 days after the ex-leader gained freedom while he contests the guilty verdict on charges of unlawful coordination in a case to obtain presidential race money from the government of former Libyan leader.

Time in Custody: Solitary Musings

“Inside jail one sees little, and activities are scarce,” he notes in an extract, suggesting the book is more about his thoughts from seclusion as opposed to a broader observation on the overcrowded and struggling correctional facilities in the country.

“Quiet is absent, which is missing in La Santé, where one hears constant sound,” he continues. “The racket unfortunately never stops. However, akin to empty spaces, inner life is fortified in prison.”

Release Hearing: Sharing the Struggle

At his release request hearing, the former leader had appeared remotely from his cell, describing his time inside as draining. He had told the court: “I wish to commend those working in the jail, who are exceptionally humane, and who have made this difficult experience tolerable – because it is a nightmare.”

“It never crossed my mind that at 70 years of age, I’d be in prison. It’s a hardship forced upon me. It’s challenging, I acknowledge, extremely tough. It leaves a mark every inmate due to its intensity.”

Historical Context

The former president, the ex-head of state from 2007 to 2012, set a precedent as former head of an EU country and the first postwar leader from France to experience jail.

Ahead of his incarceration he mentioned he intended to spend the period for authoring a memoir.

Books in Prison

It remains unclear if he found the opportunity to go through the volumes he took into prison: a biography of Jesus in two parts together with Dumas’s work The Count of Monte Cristo, in which a wrongfully accused individual is sentenced to jail but escapes to seek vengeance.

Life in Confinement

He remained secluded to protect him in a room roughly 100 square feet including private facilities at La Santé prison in Paris. Two bodyguards stayed in the next cell.

Sources mentioned that he had eaten only yoghurts in prison due to concerns any food could have been tampered with. Options were available to prepare his own meals yet he declined, as per accounts. Unclear remains whether Sarkozy will write about what he ate in prison.

Legal Perspective

His attorney, who saw him regularly every day while he was in prison, informed the court security would be better outside jail rather than in custody. “He received menacing messages, heard shouts after dark plus rapid actions in an adjacent room during an inmate’s self-injury.”

Charges and Sentence

Sarkozy went to prison on 21 October after a Paris court imposed five years in prison for illegal collaboration related to a plan to obtain election financing for his presidential bid.

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