A Former French President’s Prison Pity Party

France and America have much in common: parallel 18th-century revolutions, a shared commitment to universal ideals, the same three colors on the flag. And both countries have recently put their institutions through an unprecedented stress test. They each put a flamboyant ex-president on trial for serious, election-related crimes.

Nicolas Sarkozy, whose Paris corruption trial ended in September, responded to his accusers with the kind of bombast and fury that have long been Donald Trump’s trademark. He likened himself to Alfred Dreyfus and Edmond Dantès, unjustly maligned heroes of French history and fiction. Trump went further during his own trials, invoking Nelson Mandela and Mother Teresa—but he has always been prolific with his self-flattering analogies, having likened himself to Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Winston Churchill, and Elvis Presley.

The French can now make a flattering comparison of their own. Sarkozy was convicted of conspiring to fund his 2007 campaign with millions of euros from Muammar Qaddafi, the former Libyan dictator. Unlike Trump, he was given a five-year sentence and went to prison. The humiliation led him to embrace the far right, a choice that may reverberate through French politics. The first former French president in modern history to serve time, he was released in November pending an appeal. He served three weeks at La Santé, a prison notorious for overcrowding, vermin, and violence.