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Nicolas Sarkozy is preparing a memoir next month called A Prisoner’s Diary, detailing his experience spent in jail.

The announcement emerged less than two weeks following the former president left prison while his appeal proceeds his conviction related to unlawful coordination in a case to obtain election campaign funds provided by the regime of the late Libyan dictator.

Prison Experience: Personal Reflections

“Behind bars there is nothing to see, and activities are scarce,” he reflects in one passage, indicating the book will focus on his musings during solitary confinement instead of extensive analysis on the packed and troubled jail system in France.

“Silence escapes me, which is missing in that facility, where one hears endless commotion,” he adds. “The racket unfortunately never stops. Yet, similar to barren lands, one’s inner world is strengthened in prison.”

Release Hearing: Sharing the Struggle

While appealing for release, the former leader participated remotely from a room in prison, depicting prison life as gruelling. He expressed in court: “I want to pay tribute those working in the jail, displaying remarkable compassion, and who have made this difficult experience manageable – as it truly is one.”

“I didn’t expect that in my seventies, I would end up incarcerated. It’s a trial I must endure. I admit it’s difficult, it’s very hard. It affects one on any prisoner due to its intensity.”

Unprecedented Situation

Sarkozy, the ex-head of state from 2007 to 2012, was the first former head in the European Union and the initial post-WWII figure of France to experience jail.

Prior to imprisonment he had said he intended to spend the period for authoring a memoir.

Cell Library

Unconfirmed is whether he had time to read and critique the volumes he brought with him: a biography of Jesus in two parts and Alexandre Dumas’s novel the famous story, in which a blameless person is imprisoned then breaks out to take revenge.

Daily Reality

The former leader remained secluded for his own security in a room of about nine sq metres with his own shower and toilet at La Santé prison in Paris. Guards occupied an adjacent room.

Reports indicated his diet consisted only yoghurts in prison because he feared meals provided may have been contaminated. Although he had access to cook for himself but refused this, as per accounts. Not known is whether Sarkozy will write about what he ate in prison.

Defense Viewpoint

The legal representative, Christophe Ingrain each day while he was in prison, stated during proceedings security would be better outside jail compared to inside. “He has faced threats against his life, has heard screaming at night plus rapid actions in an adjacent room as a detainee harmed themselves.”

Charges and Sentence

Sarkozy went to prison in late October when the judiciary sentenced him to a five-year sentence for illegal collaboration in connection with efforts to secure election financing for his presidential bid.

He maintains his innocence and has appealed against the verdict, with a new trial planned for the coming spring.