What to Expect the Former President in the La Santé Facility and What Belongings Did He Bring?
Maybe the nation's most notorious prison, the La Santé prison – in which ex-president of France Nicolas Sarkozy has started a five-year jail term for criminal conspiracy to raise election financing from Libya – remains the only remaining prison inside the Paris city limits.
Located in the southern Montparnasse district of the city, it first opened in the year 1867 and was the site of at least 40 death penalties, the most recent in 1972. Partly shut down for renovation in 2014, the facility reopened five years later and holds over 1,100 prisoners.
Famous past inmates include the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, the financial trader Jérôme Kerviel, the government official and wartime collaborator Maurice Papon, the tycoon and politician Bernard Tapie, the 70s terrorist Carlos the Jackal, and model agent Jean-Luc Brunel.
Protected Wing for High-Profile Prisoners
Prominent or at-risk detainees are typically held in the jail’s QB4 unit for “vulnerable people” – the dubbed “VIP section” – in single cells, rather than the typical three-person units, and kept alone during outdoor activities for security reasons.
Located on the initial level, the unit has nineteen similar units and a private recreation area so inmates are not required to mingle with other detainees – although they remain subject to calls, insults and cellphone pictures from adjacent cells.
Mostly for this reason, Sarkozy will reportedly be held in the segregated section, which is in a separate wing. Practically, conditions are very similar as in the QB4 ward: the former president will be by himself in his room and supervised by a corrections officer whenever he exits.
“The objective is to avoid any incidents whatsoever, so we must block him from meeting fellow detainees,” a source within the facility revealed. “The most straightforward and best solution is to place Nicolas Sarkozy straight to solitary confinement.”
Cell Conditions
Both isolation and protected units are identical to those elsewhere in the institution, measuring about eleven square meters, with window blinds created to restrict interaction, a sleeping cot, a small desk, a shower, WC, and landline telephone with pre-recorded numbers.
Sarkozy will receive typical prison food but will additionally have access to the canteen, where he can buy items to make his own meals, as well as to a individual exercise yard, a gym and the prison library. He can lease a fridge for seven euros fifty a per month and a TV for €14.15.
Controlled Interactions
In addition to three allowed visits a each week, he will mainly be by himself – a privilege in the facility, which notwithstanding its modernization is operating at about double its designed capacity of 657 inmates. The country's jails are the third most congested in the EU.
Prison Supplies
Sarkozy, who has consistently maintained his innocence, has declared he will be taking with him a account of Jesus and a edition of The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas, in which an wrongly accused individual is sentenced to jail but escapes to get retribution.
Sarkozy’s attorney, Jean-Michel Darrois, mentioned he was also bringing hearing protection because prison can be noisy at nighttime, and multiple sweaters, because units can be cool. Sarkozy has said he is unafraid of being in jail and aims to make use of the period to write a manuscript.
Uncertain Duration
It remains uncertain, though, for how long he will in fact stay in the facility: his legal team have lodged for his early release, and an reviewing judge will need to demonstrate a chance of absconding, further crimes or witness-tampering to validate his ongoing incarceration.
France's jurists have proposed he could be out before a month passes.
