Nicolas Sarkozy has already entered La Santé prison. With his wife Carla Bruni by his side, the former French president appeared just before 9:15 at the door of his residence at Villa Montmorency, greeted his supporters, and got into the car escorted by a long dozen of police on motorcycles.
The entire family held a support gathering outside their apartment in the 16th district of Paris before his departure to prison, where he had to enter before ten o'clock on Tuesday. His wife, their daughter Giulia, and his three children from previous marriages (Jean, Pierre, and Louis) joined the emotional farewell along with a handful of friends.
To the chants of "Nicolas, Nicolas, we are with you!", a hundred supporters cheered the former president waving French flags before the convoy departed for La Santé prison, built in 1867 south of the Seine. The long list of illustrious prisoners at the old prison includes the military figure Alfred Dreyfus, the poet Apollinaire, the former Algerian president Ahmed Ben Bella, and the former President of the Generalitat Francesc Macià.
The 70-year-old former president will serve a five-year prison sentence for "criminal association" in the Libyan connection case (money diverted by Muammar Gaddafi's associates for his 2007 campaign). Sarkozy can appeal the "immediate execution" sentence upon entering prison.
His transfer to prison, where he will be in a semi-isolation regime, required a significant security deployment. Sarkozy will occupy a private cell of nine square meters and will have a television, refrigerator, radiator, desk, and a bed, as well as a private bathroom and shower, with an exterior window with bars. Meals will be served in his cell, and he will have an hour and a half in the morning and the same in the afternoon for exercise or to go to the library.
Visits from lawyers, acquaintances, and family will be received in a designated room in the same wing. During the initial days, he will undergo enhanced surveillance to assess his psychological state and adaptation to prison life.
"They want to make me disappear, but all of this will help me to be reborn," Sarkozy declared in his last interview with Le Figaro, where he confessed that he will bring The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas and the biography of Jesus by Jean-Christian Petitfils to prison.
"My life is a novel," he warned when anticipating that he will take advantage of his confinement to write a book as a personal revenge: "I already know what the climax will be." At the farewell gathering with friends, family, and collaborators, held a few days ago in a salon in the Bois de Boulogne forest, he proudly proclaimed: "The end of the story is not yet written".
Sarkozy personally met with President Emmanuel Macron on Friday, who justified the meeting by saying: "It is normal that, on a human level, I receive one of my predecessors in this context." However, Macron reiterated his defense of "judicial independence" following threats received by judges after Sarkozy's five-year sentence.
Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin also stated that he will visit him in prison soon. "I feel great sadness for President Sarkozy, with whom I used to collaborate, and I cannot be indifferent to a man's anguish," Darmanin argued, mentioning that he visits French prisons at least three times a week.