Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy starts jail term in Paris prison

Nicolas Sarkozy became the first former French president in living memory to be imprisoned as he began serving a five-year sentence in Paris’ La Santé prison on Tuesday for criminal conspiracy in an attempt to use Libyan money to finance his 2007 election campaign.

The president of France between 2007 and 2012, Sarkozy will serve his sentence in a prison that has housed some of the most well-known inmates since the 1800s.

They include Captain Alfred Dreyfus, wrongly convicted of treason in an infamous antisemitism case at the turn of the last century, and Venezuelan leftist militant Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, known as Carlos the Jackal, who carried out multiple terrorist attacks on French soil.

In an unprecedented judgment last month, the Paris judge ruled that Sarkozy would start serving prison time without waiting for his appeal to be heard due to “the seriousness of the disruption to public order caused by the offence.”

Under the ruling, the former French president can only file a request for release to the appeals court once he is behind bars. Judges will then have up to two months to process the request.

The National Financial Prosecutor’s office told Sarkozy the specifics of his detention last Monday, but the details have not been made public. French Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin confirmed that Sarkozy will enter La Santé on Tuesday and that he will personally visit him to ensure security conditions are met.

The La Santé prison

Ahead of his incarceration, Sarkozy told Le Figaro newspaper that he expects to be held in solitary confinement, where he would be kept away from all other prisoners for security reasons.

Another possibility is that he is held in the prison’s section for “vulnerable″ inmates, colloquially known as the VIP section.

There, Sarkozy could have his own cell, one of 18 identical 9-square-metre rooms in a wing separated from other general prison inmates.

The prison, which was opened in 1867, has been fully renovated in recent years.

“It’s not Nicolas Sarkozy, president of the republic, that’s coming … It’s a man who will live the same way everyone does," Pierre Botton, a former businessman-turned-author who was imprisoned in La Santé’s vulnerable section between 2020 and 2022 for misappropriation of funds from a charitable organisation.

Botton, who said he has known Sarkozy for decades, expressed doubt that the former president will be accorded many special privileges in prison.

“Even if you are president of the Republic, even if you are a very rich man, you decide nothing," he added.

Sarkozy to hold his ‘head high’

The former president has denied any wrongdoing and protested the decision that he should be imprisoned pending appeal.

“I’m not afraid of prison. I’ll hold my head high, including in front of the doors of La Santé,” Sarkozy told La Tribune Dimanche newspaper. “I’ll fight till the end.”

La Tribune Dimanche reports Sarkozy has his prison bag ready with clothes and 10 family photos he is allowed to bring.

Sarkozy also told Le Figaro newspaper he would bring three books — the maximum allowed — The Count of Monte Cristo in two volumes and a biography of Jesus Christ.

The hero of the two-tome novel by French author Alexandre Dumas escapes from an island prison where he spent 14 years before seeking revenge.

One of Sarkozy’s sons, Louis, called for a rally Tuesday morning in support of his father in the high-end Paris neighbourhood where Sarkozy lives with his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.

Bruni-Sarkozy has shared photos of Nicolas Sarkozy’s children and songs in his honour on her social media feeds since his conviction.