What Awaits the Former President in the La Santé Facility and What Personal Items Did He Bring?
Maybe France’s most notorious correctional facility, the La Santé prison – where former French president Nicolas Sarkozy is now serving a five year jail term for criminal conspiracy to obtain election financing from the Libyan government – remains the last remaining prison within the Paris city limits.
Located in the southern Montparnasse district of the capital, it opened in the year 1867 and was the site of at least 40 executions, the most recent in 1972. Partly shut down for renovation in 2014, the facility reopened five years later and holds in excess of 1,100 inmates.
Famous past inmates include the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, the rogue trader Jérôme Kerviel, the public servant and collaborator with the Nazis Maurice Papon, the tycoon and politician Bernard Tapie, the terrorist from the 1970s Carlos the Jackal, and modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel.
Protected Wing for Prominent Prisoners
Notable or endangered prisoners are generally held in the jail’s QB4 unit for “individuals at risk” – the often called “VIP section” – in individual cells, not the typical three-person units, and isolated during outdoor activities for security reasons.
Situated on the first floor, the ward has a set of uniform units and a dedicated exercise yard so detainees are not required to interact with other prisoners – while they continue to be subject to shouts, insults and cellphone pictures from adjacent cells.
Primarily for this reason, Sarkozy is expected to be placed in the isolation ward, which is in a separate wing. In reality, conditions are very similar as in the QB4 ward: the ex-president will be solitary in his cell and supervised by a prison officer each time he leaves it.
“The goal is to prevent any incidents at all, so we must prevent him from meeting fellow detainees,” an insider stated. “The most straightforward and best method is to assign Nicolas Sarkozy directly to segregation.”
Accommodation Details
Each of the isolation and VIP cells are similar to those in other parts in the institution, roughly about eleven square meters, with coverings on windows intended to reduce interaction, a sleeping cot, a small desk, a shower, WC, and fixed-line phone with pre-set numbers.
Sarkozy will be served standard meals but will also have access to the canteen, where he can buy items to make his own meals, as well as to a individual recreation area, a gym and the book collection. He can lease a cooling unit for €7.50 a per month and a television for fourteen euros fifteen.
Controlled Interactions
In addition to three authorized meetings a each week, he will mostly be by himself – a privilege in the facility, which notwithstanding its recent upgrades is running at approximately double its planned occupancy of 657 prisoners. The country's correctional facilities are the third most congested in the EU bloc.
Prison Supplies
Sarkozy, who has consistently maintained his non-guilt, has stated he will be taking with him a account of Jesus Christ and a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas, in which an innocent man is given a sentence to prison but flees to get retribution.
Sarkozy’s legal counsel, Jean-Michel Darrois, noted he was additionally bringing noise blockers because the facility can be loud at nighttime, and several sweaters, because units can be chilly. Sarkozy has commented he is unafraid of spending time in prison and aims to use it to author a manuscript.
Possible Early Release
The duration is unknown, though, the length of time he will really remain in the facility: his legal team have already filed for his early release, and an appeals judge will have to prove a chance of absconding, reoffending or influencing testimony to validate his further imprisonment.
France's legal experts have proposed he might be released before a month passes.
