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Nicolas Sarkozy is preparing a personal account next month named A Prisoner’s Diary, which recounts his time endured in jail.

The announcement emerged shortly following Sarkozy was released as his appeal proceeds his conviction for unlawful coordination regarding a scheme to obtain election campaign funds provided by the government of Muammar Gaddafi.

Life Behind Bars: Personal Reflections

“In prison there is nothing to see, and activities are scarce,” he writes in an extract, implying the memoir is more about his musings while in isolation instead of wider commentary regarding the strained and crisis-hit French prison system.

“Silence escapes me, not present at the prison, where there is endless commotion,” he continues. “The noise persists relentlessly. But, just like the desert, one’s inner world is fortified while incarcerated.”

Release Hearing: Recounting the Hardship

While appealing for release, the former leader was present by video link from a room in prison, describing his time inside as exhausting. He had told the court: “I want to pay tribute the correctional officers, displaying remarkable compassion, easing this nightmare tolerable – as it truly is one.”

“It never crossed my mind at this stage of life, I would end up incarcerated. It’s a trial I must endure. I admit it’s difficult, deeply straining. It affects one on any prisoner as it’s exhausting.”

First of Its Kind

The former president, the ex-head of state for a five-year term, became the inaugural ex-leader in the European Union and the initial post-WWII figure in the French Republic to be incarcerated.

Prior to imprisonment he declared he planned to utilize the opportunity for authoring a memoir.

Reading Material

It is not certain if he found the opportunity to review and analyze the texts he took into prison: a biography of Jesus in two parts and Alexandre Dumas’s novel the famous story, a plot where a blameless person is sentenced to jail later flees to seek vengeance.

Daily Reality

He was placed in isolation for his own security in a cell roughly 100 square feet featuring a personal bathroom at La Santé prison in Paris. Guards stayed in the next cell.

Reports indicated that he consumed solely dairy snacks in prison worried that any food may have been contaminated. Options were available to cook for himself but refused this, based on unnamed sources. Unclear remains if the memoir includes what he ate in prison.

Defense Viewpoint

The legal representative, who visited his client every day while he was in prison, stated during proceedings his safety would improve out of prison compared to inside. “There were death threats, has heard screaming at night and emergency responses next door during an inmate’s self-injury.”

Charges and Sentence

He entered custody last month after a Paris court sentenced him to a half-decade term on conspiracy charges in connection with efforts to obtain political donations for his 2007 presidential race.

He maintains his innocence and is contesting the ruling, and a fresh trial planned for early next year.