What Lies Ahead the Former President in La Santé Prison and What Personal Items Did He Bring?
Perhaps France’s most notorious correctional facility, La Santé – where former French president Nicolas Sarkozy is now serving a five-year incarceration for illegal conspiracy to solicit political donations from Libya – stands as the sole surviving prison inside the French capital's boundaries.
Located in the southern Montparnasse district of the capital, it opened in the year 1867 and was the scene of at least 40 capital punishments, the most recent in 1972. Partly closed for upgrades in 2014, the institution reopened half a decade later and houses over 1,100 inmates.
Famous former detainees include the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, the rogue trader Jérôme Kerviel, the civil servant and collaborator with the Nazis Maurice Papon, the businessman and political figure Bernard Tapie, the terrorist from the 1970s Carlos the Jackal, and modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel.
VIP Quarters for Prominent Prisoners
High-profile or endangered inmates are usually accommodated in the prison's QB4 unit for “protected persons” – the dubbed “VIP section” – in single cells, not the usual three-inmate rooms, and separated during yard time for protection purposes.
Located on the initial level, the unit has nineteen similar rooms and a reserved exercise yard so detainees are not obliged to mingle with other detainees – although they remain subject to calls, insults and mobile snapshots from neighboring units.
Mostly for this reason, Sarkozy is set to be housed in the segregated section, which is in a isolated area. Practically, circumstances are much the same as in the QB4 ward: the ex-president will be by himself in his unit and escorted by a corrections officer every time he goes out.
“The goal is to avoid any issues at all, so we need to block him from meeting any inmates,” a source within the facility stated. “The most straightforward and most effective method is to place Nicolas Sarkozy straight to solitary confinement.”
Cell Conditions
Each of the isolation and protected cells are the same to those in other parts in the jail, roughly approximately 10 square meters, with window blinds created to limit interaction, a bed, a small desk, a shower unit, lavatory, and stationary phone with pre-recorded numbers.
Sarkozy is provided with standard meals but will additionally have the option to the prison store, where he can buy items to make his own meals, as well as to a small solitary recreation area, a gym and the library. He can rent a refrigerator for €7.50 a month and a television for fourteen euros fifteen.
Restricted Visits
Apart from three authorized meetings a per week, he will primarily be by himself – a privilege in the facility, which in spite of its modernization is functioning at approximately double its designed capacity of 657 detainees. The country's correctional facilities are the third most packed in the EU bloc.
Personal Belongings
Sarkozy, who has repeatedly protested his non-guilt, has stated he will be taking with him a life story of Jesus and a edition of The Count of Monte Cristo, by the author Alexandre Dumas, in which an innocent man is sentenced to prison but breaks out to get retribution.
Sarkozy’s lawyer, Jean-Michel Darrois, said he was additionally taking earplugs because the jail can be loud at during the night, and multiple sweaters, because units can be cool. Sarkozy has said he is unafraid of spending time in jail and intends to make use of the period to author a publication.
Uncertain Duration
It remains uncertain, however, how long he will really remain in the prison: his attorneys have already filed for his premature release, and an judge on appeal will have to prove a chance of escaping, further crimes or influencing testimony to validate his further imprisonment.
France's legal experts have indicated he may be freed before a month passes.
