The prison where France's ex-President Sarkozy will serve his sentence

By Juliette Jabkhiro and Layli Foroudi

PARIS (Reuters) -Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy heads to jail on Tuesday to serve a five-year prison sentence after being convicted ofcriminal conspiracy in a case related to efforts to obtain campaign financing from Libya during Muammar Gaddafi's rule.

Below are some key facts and details about La Sante prison where Sarkozy, who has always said he is innocent, will be held:

WHY LA SANTE?

La Sante is a storied prison in the middle of Paris that once housed leftist militant Carlos the Jackal and Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega.

Sarkozy will be held in the isolation ward of the prison - one of the most secured in France - meaning he will be alone in his cell, yard and activity room, prison administration director Sebastien Cauwel told RTL radio on Tuesday.

Sarkozy's former aide Claude Gueant, who was among those found guilty on Thursday, will instead serve his sentence in a special wing for "vulnerable people" - the so-called "VIP quarters" where prominent political figures have been incarcerated in the past.

The French Justice Ministry and the Paris-La-Sante administration did not respond to Reuters questions on where Sarkozy will be held.

La Sante's location in the capital will make it easier for friends and family to come to see Sarkozy. Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin, a Sarkozy protege who now controls the prisons system, said on Monday he would visit the former president behind bars.

WHAT ARE CONDITIONS LIKE?

Inmates in the "VIP" wing are held in single cells, not the usual three-person units, and kept alone during outdoor activities for security reasons, prison guard union representative Wilfried Fonck told Reuters.

Apart from that, Fonck said, the conditions are no better than elsewhere in the prison, where cells are typically 9-12 square metres (100-130 square feet).

Isolation cells, in a separate wing, are 9 square metres with window coverings designed to limit communication between detainees, according to a 2020 report by the Supervisor-General of Places of Deprivation of Liberty.

La Sante was recently renovated, and so has better conditions than many other prisons, according to Julien Fischmeister from the French section of the International Prison Observatory.

All cells now have their own showers and landline phones. Sarkozy would also have access to a television, but would have to pay 14 euros per month for the privilege.

Fischmeister said Sarkozy would have meals delivered to him, and the prison also allows inmates to buy products to prepare their own meals in their cells.

WHAT HAS SARKOZY SAID ABOUT PRISON?

The former president said on Sunday he was not scared of going to jail, and planned to use the time to write a book.

Still, prison could be an unsettling experience for a tough-on-crime leader who once referred to rioting youth in the suburbs as "scum", and threatened to "clear them out" with high-powered water hoses.

Like many prisons in France, La Sante is overcrowded - though Sarkozy will be kept separately from other inmates. There were, as of August, 1,243 inmates in the jail which is designed to hold 657, according to Justice Ministry data.

France has the third most overcrowded prisons in Europe after Slovenia and Cyprus, according to Council of Europe figures from 2024.

WHAT IS GOING ON IN FRENCH PRISONS?

Darmanin has been leading a government push to toughen conditions for dangerous inmates in prisons across France.

Police say some prisoners run drug businesses via smuggled mobile phones and have even used them to order hits on rivals. Some have been caught on video ordering kebabs and sushi, delivered to their cells via drones.

Earlier this year, there was a series of attacks against prisons across France. Authorities say they were orchestrated by members of a Telegram group that called itself French Prisoner Rights, and sought to underline the terrible conditions faced by inmates.

(Additional reporting by Alessandro Parodi; Editing by Gabriel Stargardter and Andrew Heavens)