What to Expect the Former President in the La Santé Facility and What Personal Items Has He Taken?
Maybe France’s most legendary correctional facility, the La Santé prison – in which ex-president of France Nicolas Sarkozy is now serving a five-year incarceration for illegal conspiracy to raise election financing from Libya – remains the sole surviving prison within the French capital's boundaries.
Found in the southern Montparnasse neighborhood of the city, it opened in 1867 and hosted of no fewer than 40 capital punishments, the last in 1972. Partly closed for renovation in 2014, the prison reopened five years later and holds over 1,100 inmates.
Well-known ex- prisoners include poet Guillaume Apollinaire, the rogue trader Jérôme Kerviel, the public servant and Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon, the tycoon and political figure Bernard Tapie, the terrorist from the 1970s Carlos the Jackal, and talent scout Jean-Luc Brunel.
VIP Quarters for Notable Inmates
High-profile or at-risk inmates are usually placed in the jail’s QB4 section for “individuals at risk” – the dubbed “VIP quarters” – in solitary cells, not the usual three-person rooms, and separated during exercise periods for security reasons.
Positioned on the first floor, the unit has a set of uniform rooms and a reserved outdoor space so inmates are not obliged to mingle with other prisoners – although they continue to be exposed to whistles, taunts and cellphone pictures from adjacent cells.
Mainly for such concerns, Sarkozy is set to be housed in the segregated section, which is in a distinct block. Actually, circumstances are largely identical as in QB4: the former president will be by himself in his room and escorted by a corrections officer each time he leaves it.
“The goal is to avert any issues whatsoever, so we need to stop him from encountering other prisoners,” a prison source revealed. “The most straightforward and most efficient solution is to place Nicolas Sarkozy straight to isolation.”
Cell Conditions
Each of the isolation and protected cells are identical to those elsewhere in the institution, measuring about 10 square meters, with window blinds intended to limit communication, a sleeping cot, a compact desk, a shower, toilet, and fixed-line phone with pre-recorded numbers.
Sarkozy is provided with regular meals but will additionally have the option to the commissary, where he can buy items to prepare himself, as well as to a private exercise yard, a gym and the library. He can lease a cooling unit for seven euros fifty a month and a television for €14.15.
Limited Social Contact
Apart from three permitted visits a each week, he will primarily be by himself – a privilege in the facility, which in spite of its modernization is functioning at about double its designed capacity of 657 detainees. The country's prisons are the third most congested in the EU.
Personal Belongings
Sarkozy, who has repeatedly maintained his non-guilt, has said he will be bringing with him a biography of Jesus Christ and a version of The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas, in which an wrongly accused individual is condemned to prison but escapes to take revenge.
Sarkozy’s lawyer, Jean-Michel Darrois, mentioned he was also packing hearing protection because the facility can be loud at during the night, and multiple sweaters, because cells can be chilly. Sarkozy has said he is not scared of serving time in jail and plans to use it to author a publication.
Uncertain Duration
It is unclear, though, how long he will really be housed in La Santé: his legal team have submitted for his early release, and an appeals judge will must establish a risk of flight, further crimes or influencing testimony to validate his ongoing incarceration.
France's legal experts have indicated he may be freed within a month.
