My jail hell: Nicolas Sarkozy’s prison diary
The former French president’s first interview since his release and extracts from a forthcoming book detail how his ‘interior life was strengthened’ in jail.
He was the first French leader to be jailed since 1945 — if only for three weeks. Now Nicolas Sarkozy has spoken at length about his brief spell in Paris’s La Sante prison, describing everything from the incessant noise to the solace he found in an encounter with a priest.
In a first interview since his release, with Le Figaro yesterday (Saturday), the former president described his ordeal after he received a five-year sentence in October in connection with Libyan financing of his 2007 campaign.
Sarkozy, 70, has also written a book about his experience, extracts from which were published by the centre-right newspaper and other French media. Le Journal d’un Prisonnier (The Diary of a Prisoner) is released by Fayard on Wednesday.
“I was struck by the absence of any colour. Grey dominated everything, devoured everything, covered all surfaces,” he recounts. “There is nothing to see and nothing to do ... the noise is unfortunately constant. But, as in the desert, the interior life is strengthened in prison.”
His cell was no different from any other inmate’s, he insists, and his conditions were stricter. For his safety he was in the isolation wing and his door was often kept closed.
As a former president he was entitled to around-the-clock protection by officers who slept in an adjoining cell. His diet consisted largely of “dairy products, cereal bars, mineral water, apple juice and a few sweet treats”. Asked by Le Figaro why he decided to write the book, Sarkozy said: “I had to answer this simple question, ‘But how did I get here?’ I had to reflect on this strange life of mine, which has led me through so many extreme situations.”
He said that having finished his book a few days after his release he showed it to his wife, Carla Bruni, 57, a former model turned singer-songwriter, “who loved it”. He then passed it to his lawyers, who removed certain sections. In the diary, Sarkozy describes how he was received only two days before his incarceration by President Macron with full honours at the Elysee Palace. “Could one imagine a more striking contrast?” he reflects.
He recalls how he knelt to pray on the first day behind bars. “It came naturally,” he writes. “I prayed for the strength to bear the cross of this injustice.”
Days later, Sarkozy had a visit from the prison chaplain, arranged by his second son, Jean, 39. “I would be lying if I said I was bursting with impatience to meet him, but an appointment during the day was better than nothing,” the former president writes. Sarkozy hit it off with the priest, a youthful looking man in jeans. The meeting “allowed me to spend that Sunday of anticipated solitude with great peace of mind”, Sarkozy writes. “Some may scoff at this kind of sudden conversion. They will undoubtedly interpret it as a sign of weakness, at best a passing one. I don’t care, since these are the feelings I deeply experienced.”
Sarkozy’s release during a hearing on November 10 was a victory for his lawyers, who had argued that convicts awaiting appeal are normally left free or with an electronic ankle tag unless they are considered dangerous or likely to flee, tamper with evidence or need to be protected.
His legal ordeal is far from over. If his sentence is confirmed at an appeal due to begin in March, he could be sent back to jail for considerably more than three weeks.
The last French leader to be jailed was Philippe Petain, head of the collaborationist Vichy regime from 1940 to 1944. He was sentenced to death in 1945, but this was then commuted to life imprisonment.
The Times
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