What Lies Ahead the Former President in the La Santé Facility and What Personal Items Did He Bring?
Perhaps the nation's most fabled prison, the La Santé prison – in which ex-president of France Nicolas Sarkozy is now serving a five-year incarceration for unlawful collusion to solicit campaign funds from Libya – stands as the only remaining prison within the Paris city limits.
Found in the southern Montparnasse area of the capital, it opened in the year 1867 and hosted of a minimum of 40 capital punishments, the final one in 1972. Partly shut down for upgrades in 2014, the institution resumed operations five years later and accommodates over 1,100 inmates.
Renowned ex- detainees comprise poet Guillaume Apollinaire, the financial trader Jérôme Kerviel, the civil servant and collaborator with the Nazis Maurice Papon, the businessman and politician Bernard Tapie, the terrorist from the 1970s Carlos the Jackal, and model agent Jean-Luc Brunel.
Protected Wing for Prominent Inmates
Notable or endangered inmates are usually accommodated in the jail’s QB4 section for “individuals at risk” – the dubbed “VIP section” – in single cells, not the usual triple-occupancy cells, and separated during outdoor activities for security reasons.
Situated on the ground floor, the unit has 19 identical rooms and a reserved recreation area so inmates are not obliged to mingle with other prisoners – while they continue to be vulnerable to shouts, jeers and smartphone photos from adjacent cells.
Mainly for this reason, Sarkozy is expected to be placed in the solitary confinement unit, which is in a distinct block. In reality, conditions are very similar as in the protected unit: the past leader will be by himself in his room and escorted by a corrections officer every time he exits.
“The aim is to avert any incidents at all, so we have to prevent him from encountering fellow detainees,” a source within the facility commented. “The most straightforward and most efficient method is to send Nicolas Sarkozy straight to isolation.”
Living Quarters
Both isolation and protected units are the same to those in other parts in the prison, averaging approximately 10 square meters, with coverings on windows intended to limit interaction, a sleeping cot, a compact desk, a shower unit, toilet, and fixed-line phone with authorized contacts only.
Sarkozy will be served standard meals but will additionally have access to the canteen, where he can acquire food to make his own meals, as well as to a individual outdoor space, a gym and the library. He can pay for a refrigerator for seven euros fifty a monthly and a TV for fourteen euros fifteen.
Restricted Visits
Besides three permitted visits a per week, he will mostly be alone – a privilege in the facility, which in spite of its recent renovation is functioning at approximately double its planned occupancy of 657 detainees. France’s correctional facilities are the third most packed in the EU.
Personal Belongings
Sarkozy, who has repeatedly asserted his innocence, has said he will be carrying with him a biography of Jesus and a edition 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, noted he was also packing earplugs because the jail can be noisy at nighttime, and a few jumpers, because cells can be cool. Sarkozy has stated he is not scared of spending time in prison and plans to use it to author a manuscript.
Uncertain Duration
It is unclear, though, the length of time he will in fact remain in the prison: his attorneys have submitted for his conditional release, and an judge on appeal will must establish a potential of flight, further crimes or witness-tampering to warrant his further imprisonment.
France's jurists have suggested he might be released within a month.
