Sarkozy casts himself as new Dreyfus in prison memoir

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy signs a copy of his book, in Paris, on December 10, 2025. BERTRAND GUAY/AFP

A word counter reveals a telling result when you run Nicolas Sarkozy's Le Journal d'un prisonnier ("Journal of a Prisoner") through it. The term "injustice" and its derivatives appear more than 80 times. The author's heavy insistence reaches its peak when he compares himself to Captain Alfred Dreyfus (1859-1935), who was wrongfully convicted of high treason. Sarkozy does acknowledge, however, that, unlike Dreyfus, he was not exiled for more than four years to Devil's Island "in distant French Guiana." He only spent 21 days at La Santé, a prison in central Paris.

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Nicolas Sarkozy leaves jail under strict judicial supervision

This new book is not just a testimony written in the heat of the moment by the first former French president to be convicted and imprisoned. For Sarkozy, it is a new weapon in his ongoing legal battle and a political tool crafted to cement his reputation as an innocent victim of injustice rather than a criminal.