What Awaits the Former President in La Santé Prison and What Personal Items Has He Taken?

Possibly France’s most fabled correctional facility, La Santé – in which former French president Nicolas Sarkozy is now serving a five-year prison sentence for illegal conspiracy to raise election financing from Libya – is the only remaining prison within the French capital's boundaries.

Found in the south part of Montparnasse neighborhood of the capital, it was inaugurated in 1867 and was the site of at least 40 capital punishments, the last in 1972. Partly closed for upgrades in 2014, the facility reopened five years later and accommodates in excess of 1,100 detainees.

Renowned ex- prisoners include the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, the financial trader Jérôme Kerviel, the government official and collaborator with the Nazis Maurice Papon, the entrepreneur and politician Bernard Tapie, the terrorist from the 1970s Carlos the Jackal, and modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel.

Special Treatment for Prominent Prisoners

Notable or at-risk detainees are generally held in the jail’s QB4 unit for “vulnerable people” – the often called “VIP quarters” – in individual cells, rather than the standard triple-occupancy cells, and kept alone during outdoor activities for security reasons.

Located on the ground floor, the unit has a set of uniform units and a private exercise yard so inmates are not obliged to mingle with other prisoners – while they remain subject to calls, taunts and mobile snapshots from adjacent cells.

Mainly for that reason, Sarkozy will reportedly be held in the segregated section, which is in a separate wing. In reality, conditions are largely identical as in the protected unit: the past leader will be by himself in his room and escorted by a prison officer every time he leaves it.

“The goal is to prevent any incidents at all, so we have to block him from coming into contact with other prisoners,” a source within the facility commented. “The simplest and best approach is to send Nicolas Sarkozy immediately to solitary confinement.”

Living Quarters

Both isolation and protected rooms are the same to those elsewhere in the jail, averaging about 10 sq metres, with coverings on windows designed to limit communication, a bed, a writing table, a shower, WC, and fixed-line phone with authorized contacts only.

Sarkozy is provided with standard meals but will also have the option to the prison store, where he can purchase food to make his own meals, as well as to a individual exercise yard, a fitness room and the library. He can rent a cooling unit for 7.50 euros a per month and a television set for fourteen euros fifteen.

Restricted Visits

Besides three permitted visits a per week, he will mostly be on his own – a privilege in the prison, which in spite of its recent renovation is operating at roughly double its intended capacity of 657 inmates. The country's jails are the third most packed in the EU.

Personal Belongings

Sarkozy, who has consistently asserted his non-guilt, has stated he will be bringing with him a life story of Jesus Christ and a version of The Count of Monte Cristo, by the author Alexandre Dumas, in which an wrongly accused individual is condemned to prison but breaks out to get retribution.

Sarkozy’s attorney, Jean-Michel Darrois, noted he was additionally taking noise blockers because the facility can be loud at night, and a few jumpers, because rooms can be cool. Sarkozy has said he is unafraid of serving time in jail and plans to make use of the period to compose a book.

Uncertain Duration

It remains uncertain, nevertheless, how long he will actually stay in the prison: his legal team have submitted for his premature release, and an reviewing judge will have to prove a potential of flight, further crimes or witness-tampering to justify his further imprisonment.

France's law specialists have suggested he could be out within a month.