Nicolas Sarkozy has officially become the first French president in living memory to serve a prison sentence. On Tuesday, he entered the Paris prison of La Santé to begin a five-year prison term for criminal conspiracy in what has been called an illicit campaign financing case concerning Libyan money during the election campaign of 2007. While Sarkozy denies any wrongdoing, the Paris judge ordered him to prison immediately because of the effect of the affair on public trust.

Conditions Inside La Santé

Former French President Sarkozy Set to Begin Five‑Year Prison Term

La Santé is a 19th-century prison that has just been renovated and in which have been imprisoned big figures like Alfred Dreyfus or Carlos the Jackal. Sarkozy is expected to be incarcerated either in isolation or in the wing for vulnerable inmates, the so-called VIP room. There he will have, according to Le Monde, a 9m2 cell with a bed fixed to the ground, a glass-ceramic stove, pay-TV, telephone which can send phone calls but not receive them, and which can be seen by cameras all day long.

Pierre Botton, a former prison inmate who knew Sarkozy, explained the change of atmosphere awaiting Sarkozy. “You go at it from the luxury to cleaning the floor of one’s cell. At 7pm repose is attained and all is shut, and you are alone. All is over,” he said to the press.

A Defiant Sarkozy Prepares for Solitude

Sarkozy, however, displays defiance in public display: “I’m not afraid of prison. I will hold my head high, also before La Santé’s doors,” he told La Tribune Dimanche in one of his interviews. He is reported to have made himself a small bag of tricks, containing three books, one, reported, is the the Count of Monte Cristo, whose fortunate escapes from the prison lead to a course of redemption.

His son Louis Sarkozy has called on all citizens to gather publicly in a demonstration, in the district of Paris, were they live. His wife Carla found ways, also, of giving public expression to her own support, by way of songs and pictures of the family. According to the judgement, Sarkozy can not apply for a release from prison until he is imprisoned, and the next two months the judges have time to examine any applications from him.

Even the long-time friends, like Patrick Balkany, who served time also in the La Santé establishment, knows how far and hard the road is for Sarkozy The former president who was once in power knows this: “one moves from a person of a certain importance, a person with a famous name (who is well known), to a fucking number like 4918, or something like that in the La Santé. Even a former president does not get to decide anything once in prison,” he said in an interview to RTL.