Nicolas Sarkozy will soon publish a personal account in the coming weeks titled Notes from a Cell, which recounts his time spent behind bars.
The announcement emerged less than two weeks after the former president left prison as his appeal proceeds his conviction on charges of illegal collaboration in a case to obtain election campaign funds from the leadership of former Libyan leader.
“In prison one sees little, and nothing to do,” he writes in a preview, suggesting the memoir will focus on his musings during isolation instead of wider commentary of the strained and troubled French prison system.
“I forget silence, which doesn’t exist at the prison, where one hears constant sound,” he adds. “The din unfortunately never stops. But, just like the desert, one’s inner world grows stronger while incarcerated.”
During his plea for freedom, he was present by video link from inside the facility, depicting prison life as gruelling. He expressed in court: “I must acknowledge those working in the jail, showing great humanity, and who have made this difficult experience tolerable – because it is a nightmare.”
“I didn’t expect that in my seventies, I would end up incarcerated. It’s an ordeal forced upon me. It’s challenging, I acknowledge, deeply straining. It affects one all who experience it due to its intensity.”
Sarkozy, who served as France’s president between 2007 and 2012, set a precedent as past president from the EU and the first leader since WWII of France to serve time in prison.
Ahead of his incarceration he mentioned he intended to spend the period to compose an account.
It remains unclear whether he had time to review and analyze the volumes he had in his cell: a biography of Jesus in two parts together with Dumas’s work the famous story, a plot where an innocent man ends up incarcerated later flees to seek vengeance.
Sarkozy was placed secluded for his own security in a space of about nine sq metres featuring a personal bathroom in the Paris jail in Paris. Guards stayed in the next cell.
Reports indicated that he consumed solely dairy snacks during his stay due to concerns any food could have been tampered with. He had facilities for self-catering but refused this, according to reports. It is uncertain whether Sarkozy will write about meals during incarceration.
Sarkozy’s lawyer, who visited his client every day while he was in prison, stated during proceedings he would be safer out of prison compared to inside. “He has faced threats against his life, heard shouts at night and the urgent intervention in a neighbouring cell during an inmate’s self-injury.”
Sarkozy went to prison in late October when the judiciary imposed a half-decade term for criminal conspiracy over a scheme to secure election financing during his election campaign.
He denies wrongdoing and is contesting the ruling, and another court case is scheduled for next spring.
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