PARIS, France – The Paris prosecutor’s office has ordered an urgent investigation after videos circulated on social media showing inmates at La Santé prison in Paris threatening and insulting former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who began serving a prison sentence for illegally financing his election campaign.
These threats came after Sarkozy’s arrival at a prison in the 16th arrondissement of the French capital. A video clip showed an inmate making direct threats against him, prompting the prosecution to task the judicial police with conducting a serious investigation into the incident.
In an official statement, the Public Prosecutor’s Office confirmed that the prison director informed the prosecution on October 22, 2025, of the existence of the circulating video, which was filmed inside a cell at La Santé. Subsequently, prison administration was able to identify the cell from which the clip was released and confiscated two cell phones from the inmates.
The investigation included the interrogation of three detainees pending investigation, placing them under tight security surveillance, and initiating disciplinary proceedings that could lead to their transfer to other prisons. As part of the Parisian investigation, a formal investigation was opened into “death threats.”
For their part, sources close to Sarkozy expressed the former president’s willingness to join the case as a civil party if it goes to trial, to claim his legal rights.
Sarkozy, who served as French president from 2007 to 2012, began serving a five-year prison sentence on October 21, 2025, after being convicted of conspiring to collect funds from Libya during Muammar Gaddafi’s regime to finance his election campaign. The placement of two armed police officers in an adjacent cell sparked complaints from prison unions about the heightened security measures at his detention center.
يأتي هذا التطور في باريس وسط تأزم الوضع الأمني داخل السجون الفرنسية، وسط مراقبة حثيثة من السلطات لضمان سلامة جميع النزلاء، بما في ذلك الشخصيات البارزة مثل ساركوزي.
