🔗 Share this article

Nicolas Sarkozy is preparing a memoir this autumn named Diary of a Prisoner, detailing his experience endured behind bars.

This news emerged shortly following the former president left prison while he contests the court ruling for illegal collaboration regarding a scheme to acquire presidential race money linked to the regime of former Libyan leader.

Prison Experience: Personal Reflections

“Inside jail visibility is limited, and activities are scarce,” he writes in an extract, implying the book centers around his musings during solitary confinement as opposed to a broader observation of the strained and struggling jail system in France.

“Quiet is absent, not present at the prison, where there is constant sound,” he continues. “The racket persists relentlessly. But, just like the desert, inner life grows stronger behind bars.”

Release Hearing: Describing the Ordeal

During his plea for freedom, the former leader was present by video link from his cell, depicting prison life as gruelling. He stated to the judge: “I want to pay tribute those working in the jail, showing great humanity, easing this difficult experience tolerable – since it’s deeply troubling.”

“It never crossed my mind that at 70 years of age, I’d be in prison. It’s a hardship that has been imposed on me. It’s challenging, I acknowledge, deeply straining. It leaves a mark all who experience it due to its intensity.”

Unprecedented Situation

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

Ahead of his incarceration he mentioned he intended to spend the period to write a book.

Reading Material

Unconfirmed is if he found the opportunity to read and critique the texts he had in his cell: a two-volume biography of Jesus together with Dumas’s work The Count of Monte Cristo, a plot where an innocent man is sentenced to jail but escapes to exact retribution.

Prison Conditions

He remained in isolation for his own security in a room approximately nine square meters featuring a personal bathroom at the correctional facility in the city. Two bodyguards occupied an adjacent room.

It was stated that he had eaten just yogurt while inside due to concerns any food might have been spat on. Options were available for self-catering yet he declined, according to reports. Unclear remains if the memoir includes his dietary choices.

Lawyer’s Statements

The legal representative, who saw him regularly daily during the incarceration, informed the court his safety would improve out of prison compared to inside. “He has faced menacing messages, has heard screaming during nighttime plus rapid actions in an adjacent room during an inmate’s self-injury.”

Legal Proceedings

He entered custody on 21 October following the judiciary sentenced him to five years in prison on conspiracy charges in connection with efforts to obtain campaign funds for his 2007 presidential race.

He disputes the charges and has appealed against the verdict, and another court case is scheduled for early next year.