Nicolas Sarkozy will serve five years in solitary confinement for illegal campaign funding. Photo / Getty Images
Nicolas Sarkozy will be held in solitary confinement and use his time behind bars to write a book, he has revealed.
The former French president was found guilty last month of conspiring to finance his 2007 presidential campaign with funds from Muammar Gaddafi, the late Libyan dictator.
He was sentenced to five years in prison and banned from holding public office.
On Tuesday local time, Sarkozy will become the first President in the history of the Fifth Republic to serve jail time, but he remains defiant about his imminent imprisonment.
“I’m not afraid of prison. I’ll hold my head high, even at the doors of the penitentiary,” he told La Tribune du Dimanche, a weekly political publication.
Sarkozy, who also served as Minister of the Interior, overseeing law enforcement and domestic security, will be placed in solitary confinement in Paris’s La Sante prison over fears for his safety.
He will be housed on the top floor of the isolation wing, separate from the other inmates, and will always be accompanied by a guard.
His cell will be equipped with a bed, desk, shower, toilet and hot plate. He can also apply to have a fridge and TV.
Aside from his cell, the convicted ex-President will be able to make two visits a day to one of the prison’s three gyms or small exercise yards.
“I’m not asking for any privileges,” he told the Tribune.
In his last days of freedom, Sarkozy said he has received calls of support from politicians of all stripes, including President Emmanuel Macron.
Without going into detail, Sarkozy described the conversation as “mechanical”.
Two former prime ministers – Edouard Philippe, a presidential hopeful from the centrist Horizons party, and Francois Fillon, who was found guilty of embezzling public funds to pay for his British-born wife’s fictitious employment – have also spoken with the 70-year-old.
In her judgment, Nathalie Gavarino, the presiding judge, described Sarkozy’s acts as “exceptionally grave” and likely to undermine public faith in French institutions.
“You exploited your ministerial position to prepare high-level corruption,” she said.
The courts acquitted him of other charges, including corruption and illegal campaign financing.
Sarkozy insists that the verdict was “politically motivated” and has appealed.
“I will fight to the end to vindicate this,” he said. “This is a fight for my innocence and for my honour, of course. But, beyond my person, it is also, and perhaps above all, a demand for truth and justice.”
After moving out of the Elysee palace in 2012, Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni, a former model and singer, settled into a private west-end mansion in Villa Montmorency, one of the most exclusive and expensive enclaves of Paris’s affluent 16th arrondissement.
The gated community, where homes valued at millions of euros range from 1615 to 10,765sq ft, is protected by high walls and 24-hour security.
Some of Sarkozy’s celebrity neighbours included Isabelle Adjani, the actress, and singers Johnny Hallyday, Celine Dion and Mylene Farmer.
After years of throwing society dinner parties with high-powered business figures, politicians, and artists, Sarkozy will dine alone in his cell.
The guest list at one of his renowned soirees included Mick Jagger, the Rolling Stones frontman and former lover of Bruni, Travis Kalanick, the former head of Uber, Luc Ferry, the public intellectual, Florian Zeller, the playwright, and Sebastien Bazin, chief of Accor, the global hotel chain.
He told La Tribune that his diet is a chief concern for his wife, who is worried he will be poorly fed.
Sarkozy’s son Louis has called for a public rally at the Villa Montmorency to support his father on Wednesday.
“This rally is not political. This is neither a protest nor a denunciation. It’s simply a gesture of support, a silent testimony worthy of a grateful country towards a man who devoted his life to it,” he wrote on Instagram.