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Nicolas Sarkozy will soon publish a book in the coming weeks named Diary of a Prisoner, which recounts his experience endured in custody.

The announcement was made less than two weeks following the ex-leader was released while he appeals the guilty verdict on charges of unlawful coordination regarding a scheme to acquire election campaign funds from the government of the late Libyan dictator.

Time in Custody: Personal Reflections

“Behind bars one sees little, with little to occupy time,” he notes in one passage, indicating the account centers around his thoughts from isolation as opposed to extensive analysis on the strained and struggling French prison system.

“I forget silence, not present at the prison, where one hears constant sound,” he adds. “The din persists relentlessly. However, akin to empty spaces, one’s inner world grows stronger while incarcerated.”

Release Hearing: Sharing the Struggle

At his release request hearing, Sarkozy participated by video link from his cell, depicting prison life as draining. He had told the court: “I wish to commend to all the prison staff, who are exceptionally humane, easing this ordeal bearable – as it truly is one.”

“I didn’t expect that in my seventies, I’d be in prison. It’s a hardship forced upon me. I admit it’s difficult, it’s very hard. It leaves a mark every inmate because it’s gruelling.”

First of Its Kind

He, who served as France’s president for a five-year term, became the inaugural past president in the European Union and the first postwar leader in the French Republic to be incarcerated.

Before entering jail he mentioned he planned to utilize the opportunity to write a book.

Cell Library

It remains unclear whether he had time to read and critique the texts he had in his cell: a two-volume biography of Jesus plus the novel by Dumas the famous story, a plot where an innocent man is sentenced to jail then breaks out to take revenge.

Life in Confinement

He was held secluded to protect him in a room approximately nine square meters featuring a personal bathroom at the correctional facility in the city. Guards were stationed in the next cell.

Sources mentioned his diet consisted just yogurt in prison due to concerns meals provided could have been tampered with. He had facilities to prepare his own meals but he turned this down, based on unnamed sources. Not known is whether Sarkozy will write about meals during incarceration.

Defense Viewpoint

Sarkozy’s lawyer, who saw him regularly every day throughout the jail term, informed the court his safety would improve released than inside. “There were death threats, heard shouts at night plus rapid actions next door when a prisoner self-harmed.”

Legal Proceedings

His incarceration began last month after a French court sentenced him to a half-decade term on conspiracy charges over a scheme to secure campaign funds during his election campaign.

He maintains his innocence challenging the decision, and another court case planned for the coming spring.