Nicolas Sarkozy’s 200-page memoir, “A Prisoner’s Diary”, is a colourful account of what it’s like to be a former president in prison.
Sarkozy, now 70, was released from La Santé prison in Paris last month after serving 20 days of a five-year jail sentence for taking part in an election campaign funding conspiracy.
That means he wrote about ten or more pages for every 24 hours.
He spend the twenty days in a clean 12-square-metre cell, hosting a bed, desk, fridge, shower and television.
It was not dark, but he describes an eye-hole for the prison guards to keep an eye on him.
Instead of going out for walks in the prison courtyard — probably avoiding other prisoners — Sarkozy exercised on a treadmill, which he describes as keeping his sanity intact.
He also describes his first sleepless night in jail, due to a neighbour singing a song from a song from The Lion King and rattling his spoon along the bars of his cell.
Contact with anyone other than a prison employee was forbidden. Luckily, the guards were respectful and kind.
The former president wallpapered his cell with postcards from people writing to express their support. In fact, the book details many instances of support that the former president noted.
In an unexpected whirlwind, Sarkozy was found guilty of criminal association for allowing subordinates to try to raise election money 20 years ago from Gaddafi. These are charges which Sarkozy vehemently denies in the book, comparing himself to the quintessential Jewish-French figure, Alfred Dreyfus, who was banished to Devil’s Island for a faked espionage charge. In an attempt to paint himself in a positive light through writing, Sarkozy mentions reading a biography of Jesus Christ and “The Count of Monte Cristo” in prison.
He also writes about his friend-turned-nemesis, Emmanuel Macron, who discharged Sarkozy from the Legion of Honour without an explanation. Macron did, however, offer to move him to a more comfortable prison, which Sarkozy promptly refused.
The French media is currently scrutinizing the newly published book — without much sympathy, it seems. Despite internal critique, the book is already first in Amazon pre-sales, and several hundred supporters lined up for the launch event, which triggered a protest and shut down the street of the Lamartine bookshop.
