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The ex-president of France is preparing a book next month named A Prisoner’s Diary, which recounts the period spent in custody.

The announcement was made shortly after Sarkozy gained freedom while his appeal proceeds the court ruling for unlawful coordination regarding a scheme to obtain election campaign funds from the leadership of Muammar Gaddafi.

Life Behind Bars: Solitary Musings

“In prison one sees little, and activities are scarce,” he writes in an extract, suggesting the account is more about his reflections from seclusion as opposed to extensive analysis on the overcrowded and crisis-hit French prison system.

“Silence escapes me, which is missing in La Santé, where noise is a lot to hear,” he states. “The noise persists relentlessly. Yet, similar to barren lands, inner life grows stronger in prison.”

Release Hearing: Describing the Ordeal

While appealing for release, the former leader had appeared by video link from a room in prison, characterizing his incarceration as draining. He expressed in court: “I want to pay tribute those working in the jail, who are exceptionally humane, easing this ordeal tolerable – as it truly is one.”

“I never imagined at this stage of life, I’d be in prison. It’s an ordeal I must endure. I confess it’s hard, it’s very hard. It has an impact all who experience it because it’s gruelling.”

Unprecedented Situation

The former president, who led the nation between 2007 and 2012, was the first past president in the European Union and the initial post-WWII figure of France to be incarcerated.

Before entering jail he mentioned he intended to spend the period to compose an account.

Reading Material

It is not certain did he manage to review and analyze the texts he took into prison: a biography of Jesus in two parts together with Dumas’s work the famous story, in which an innocent man is sentenced to jail later flees to seek vengeance.

Prison Conditions

Sarkozy was placed in solitary confinement due to safety concerns in a space approximately nine square meters including private facilities at the correctional facility in the city. Two bodyguards stayed in the next cell.

Sources mentioned his diet consisted only yoghurts in prison due to concerns meals provided might have been spat on. Options were available to prepare his own meals but he turned this down, based on unnamed sources. It is uncertain if the memoir includes meals during incarceration.

Legal Perspective

Sarkozy’s lawyer, Christophe Ingrain daily while he was in prison, stated during proceedings his safety would improve released than inside. “There were menacing messages, heard shouts during nighttime and the urgent intervention in a neighbouring cell as a detainee harmed themselves.”

Legal Proceedings

His incarceration began on 21 October when a Paris court sentenced him to a five-year sentence for criminal conspiracy in connection with efforts to secure political donations for his 2007 presidential race.

He denies wrongdoing and is contesting the ruling, with a new trial set for the coming spring.