What to Expect the Former President in the La Santé Facility and What Personal Items Did He Bring?
Perhaps the nation's most notorious correctional facility, La Santé – where ex-president of France Nicolas Sarkozy has begun a five-year prison sentence for criminal conspiracy to solicit campaign funds from Libya – remains the last remaining prison inside the city of Paris.
Situated in the southern Montparnasse neighborhood of the city, it first opened in the year 1867 and was the site of at least 40 capital punishments, the most recent in 1972. Partly closed for upgrades in 2014, the institution resumed operations half a decade later and houses more than 1,100 detainees.
Famous ex- inmates include the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, the rogue trader Jérôme Kerviel, the civil servant and wartime collaborator Maurice Papon, the tycoon and political figure Bernard Tapie, the 70s terrorist Carlos the Jackal, and talent scout Jean-Luc Brunel.
Special Treatment for Prominent Inmates
Prominent or endangered prisoners are generally accommodated in the jail’s QB4 section for “individuals at risk” – the dubbed “VIP quarters” – in solitary cells, not the standard three-person rooms, and separated during yard time for security reasons.
Located on the initial level, the ward has 19 identical rooms and a private outdoor space so inmates are not obliged to interact with other detainees – although they remain exposed to whistles, taunts and cellphone pictures from nearby cells.
Mainly for that reason, Sarkozy is set to be housed in the segregated section, which is in a distinct block. Actually, circumstances are very similar as in QB4: the former president will be by himself in his cell and escorted by a guard each time he goes out.
“The objective is to avoid any incidents at all, so we need to stop him from meeting any inmates,” a source within the facility revealed. “The most straightforward and most efficient approach is to send Nicolas Sarkozy straight to segregation.”
Cell Conditions
Each of the solitary and protected units are the same to those in other parts in the institution, averaging approximately 10 sq metres, with coverings on windows intended to restrict contact, a bed, a writing table, a shower, toilet, and stationary phone with pre-recorded numbers.
Sarkozy is provided with typical prison food but will additionally have the option to the canteen, where he can acquire groceries to make his own meals, as well as to a private recreation area, a fitness room and the library. He can pay for a cooling unit for seven euros fifty a monthly and a television for €14.15.
Limited Social Contact
Apart from three authorized meetings a each week, he will mostly be on his own – a privilege in La Santé, which in spite of its recent renovation is running at approximately double its designed capacity of 657 inmates. The country's jails are the third most packed in the EU.
Items Brought
Sarkozy, who has consistently protested his non-guilt, has stated he will be bringing with him a biography of Jesus Christ and a edition of The Count of Monte Cristo, by the author Alexandre Dumas, in which an falsely convicted person is given a sentence to jail but escapes to take revenge.
Sarkozy’s lawyer, Jean-Michel Darrois, noted he was also bringing hearing protection because the jail can be disruptive at nighttime, and several sweaters, because units can be chilly. Sarkozy has commented he is fearless of serving time in jail and aims to use it to compose a publication.
Uncertain Duration
It remains uncertain, however, the length of time he will really remain in La Santé: his lawyers have submitted for his conditional release, and an appeals judge will have to prove a risk of flight, reoffending or interfering with witnesses to warrant his continued detention.
France's jurists have suggested he may be freed in less than a month.