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Nicolas Sarkozy has described The prison where he spent 20 days in a noisy, harsh “all-grey” world Of “inhuman violence” in a new memoir.
Former President of France sheds light on his experience Solitary confinement in La Sante prisonWhere he was held earlier this year after being found guilty of criminal cooperation in financing his 2007 victorious campaign with money from Libya.
sarkozy wrote in diary of a prisoner ,diary of a prisoner,Published on Wednesday, that his cell resembled a “low-end hotel”Except for armored doors and bars”.
In the 216-page book, he describes an inmate who was “continuously striking the bars of his cell” with a piece of metal, setting the tone: “Welcome to hell!”
Sarkozy said he refused to accept meals served in small plastic trays with “mushy, soggy baguettes” – their smell, he wrote, was making him nauseous. Instead, he ate dairy products and cereal bars.
They were allowed to stay in a small gym room for an hour a day, where they mostly used a basic treadmill. While in solitary confinement he was also allowed regular visits with his wife, supermodel-turned-singer Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, and his lawyers.
Sarkozy was jailed on 21 October and released on 10 November, with his memoirs published a month later. He was allowed to serve the remaining five years of his sentence at home, monitored with an electronic bracelet or other requirements to be determined by the judge.
The former president said the “most inhumane violence” in prison was a “daily reality” and questioned how well equipped the system was to reintegrate people back into society.
Sarkozy, known for his tough rhetoric on punishing criminals, promised himself that “upon my release, my comments will be more detailed and nuanced than what I had previously expressed on all these subjects”.
His memoir, published at the end of a long and turbulent year in French politics, also included some suggestions on how to manage the rise of the far right by appealing to it.
Marine Le Pen’s national rally is “not a threat to the Republic,” he wrote. “When it comes to economic policy we don’t share the same views, we don’t share the same history – and I think there may still be some problematic figures among them.
“But they represent the very many French people, respect the results of the election and participate in the workings of our democracy.”
Sarkozy argued that the rebuilding of his weakened party, The Republicans, “can only be achieved through the widest possible sense of unity”.
Republicans, in recent years, have been moving away from the decades-long position among the parties that any electoral strategy should aim to engage the far right, even if it means losing a district to another opponent.
Sarkozy also revealed he had lost confidence in Emmanuel Macron after the president did not intervene to prevent him being stripped of France’s highest honour, the Legion of Honour, in June.