Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy began serving a five-year sentence at La Santé prison in Paris on Tuesday. Sarkozy, who led France from 2007 to 2012, was convicted in late September of criminal conspiracy in connection with a scheme involving former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi to finance his election campaign.
He becomes the first French leader to be imprisoned since Nazi collaborator Marshal Philippe Pétain after World War II. In the meantime, the former president will have to spend his time in an 11-square-meter cell, equipped with a small stove, a work desk and a shower with a toilet. He will have access to a television (for a fee of 14 euros per month), a library and a gym.
Sarkozy has said he plans to write a new book while in prison and has taken with him three books, the maximum allowed for prisoners.
He told French newspaper Le Figaro that he has chosen: “The Count of Monte Cristo” by Alexandre Dumas (in two volumes) and a biography of Jesus Christ. The first, published in 1846, is deeply symbolic: its hero, Edmond Dantès, is unjustly imprisoned for 14 years and plots his revenge after escaping. As for the second book, “Jésus” by Jean-Christian Petitfils, published in 2011, offers a well-documented portrait of the life of Christ.
