At the end of September, a court in Paris sentenced former French president Nicolas Sarkozy to five years in prison in a trial regarding illegal financing of the election campaign with funds from Libya. In the trial, Nicolas Sarkozy was cleared of corruption charges, but the court found him guilty of conspiracy.
The former French leader is scheduled to be behind bars on October 21. He will be placed in La Sante prison in Paris. Over the years, the prison has hosted many famous politicians. It housed, for example, one of the most wanted terrorists of the 1970s and 1980s, Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, known as “The Jackal”, the robber Jacques Mesrine, who became famous for escaping from prison, and Alfred Dreyfus, a French officer of Jewish origin wrongly convicted of treason.
La Sante prison in ParisJoel Saget / AFP
Recently, Alexandre Benalla, bodyguard of French President Emmanuel Macron, was transferred to La Sante. All because of a recording in which he beats one of the protesters at the “yellow vest” demonstration. It turns out that Nicolas Sarkozy will not even be the first world leader imprisoned in this prison. Previously, Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega was detained there after his extradition from the US.
Nicolas Sarkozy will be placed in La Sante in the VIP wing, intended for people with special status. – It's like an Ibis hotel – said Marco Mouly, a former prisoner of this wing, in a 2022 documentary, comparing his time in the VIP wing to a European chain of budget hotels. The prison recently underwent a four-year renovation process and reopened in 2019.
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Nicolas Sarkozy will be sent to a Paris prison. “Screams wake you up at night”
The former French president will most likely be assigned one of 18 identical cells, each equipped with a stove, refrigerator, TV, shower and toilet, as well as a landline telephone.
Nicolas Sarkozy will most likely end up in a cell in the VIP wingBertrand Guay / AFP
The cells have an area of nine square meters. They are no larger than normal, but VIP wing residents usually do not have to share a cell with anyone else. Still, being in prison is far from comfortable.
— The problem is noise, said former official and politician Didier Schuller, who spent several weeks at the plant, in an interview for BFMTV in 2022. “Screaming wakes you up at night,” he added.
Patrick Balkany, former mayor of Levallois-Peret, who was imprisoned in La Sante for non-payment of taxes, said that the main problem is uncertainty. -You know when you go to jail. But you have no idea when you will get out, he emphasized.
Even the stay in the VIP wing of La Sante prison is said to be far from comfortableBertrand Guay / AFP
