Nicolas Sarkozy has described the prison where he spent 20 days as a noisy, harsh “all-grey” world of “inhuman violence” in a new memoir.
The former French president shed light on his experience in solitary confinement at La Santé prison, where he was held earlier this year after being found guilty of criminal association in financing his winning 2007 campaign with funds from Libya.
Sarkozy wrote in Diary of a Prisoner (Le journal d’un prisonnier), published on Wednesday, that his cell resembled a “low-end hotel, except for the armoured door and the bars”.
In the 216-page book, he described an inmate “relentlessly striking the bars of his cell” with a piece of metal that set the tone: “Welcome to hell!”
Sarkozy said he declined meals served in small plastic trays along with a “mushy, soggy baguette” – their smell, he wrote, made him nauseous. Instead, he ate dairy products and cereal bars.
He was allowed one hour a day in a small gym room, where he mostly used a basic treadmill. He was also allowed regular visits from his wife, supermodel-turned-singer Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, and his lawyers, while in solitary confinement.
Sarkozy was jailed on 21 October and released on 10 November, with the memoir published just a month later. He was allowed to serve the rest of his five-year sentence from home, monitored with an electronic bracelet or other requirements to be set by a judge.
The former president said that “the most inhumane violence” had been a “daily reality” in prison and questioned how well the system was equipped to reintegrate people back into society.
Known for his tough rhetoric on punishing criminals, Sarkozy promised himself that “upon my release, my comments would be more elaborate and nuanced than what I had previously expressed on all these topics”.
His memoir, published at the end of a long and turbulent year in French politics, also contained some suggestions on managing the rise of the far right – by appealing to it.
Marine Le Pen’s National Rally is “not a danger for the Republic”, he wrote. “We do not share the same ideas when it comes to economic policy, we do not share the same history – and I note that there may still be some problematic figures among them.
“But they represent so many French people, respect the results of the elections and participate in the functioning of our democracy.”
Sarkozy argued that the reconstruction of his weakened Republicans party “can only be achieved through the broadest possible spirit of unity”.
The Republicans party has, in recent years, been moving away from a position held among parties for decades that any electoral strategy must be aimed at containing the far right, even if it means losing a district to another competitor.
Sarkozy also revealed he had lost trust in Emmanuel Macron after the president did not intervene to prevent him from being stripped of the Legion of Honour, France’s highest distinction, in June.
