France
Capital city — Paris
Latest updates
People eligible to visit
anyone
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Visits became rarer in prison after the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the Loiret, the Prison Visitors’ Association began to look for some fifteen volunteers to help with the situation.
Prisoners and visitors can meet without physical barriers
Visits in an area with a separation system are the result of a decision by the prison administration. Such visiting rooms separate inmates from visitors by a window pane and a telephone and result from a decision by the prison administration. They may be imposed following a disciplinary sanction or if the prison administration has reason to believe that an incident may occur. This decision must be communicated to the inmate, who may challenge its legitimacy with the help of a lawyer.
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The administrative judge of Toulouse condemned, on 18 February, the installation of floor-to-ceiling hermetic windows in the visiting rooms at Seysses prison. These were installed to stem the spread of the coronavirus.
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In Isère, the number of parcels thrown out into the prisons increased. The upsurge was likely due to protective screens in the visiting areas that prevented the transfer of items.
Variation in the number of prisoners
decrease
(-11.4% between 2020 and 2021)
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The Controller-General for Places of Deprivation of Liberty called for new measures to reduce prison overcrowding in order to stop the coronavirus from spreading within prisons, such as “the ones successfully implemented in the spring”. An open letter was sent to the Ministry of Justice about this, explaining: “the directives that were sent to the jurisdictions were (…) obviously not followed”.
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The prison population had been on the rise after a number of early release measures intended to help dealing with the spread of coronavirus. In February, there were reportedly 4,000 more inmates than six months before.
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Between January and April 2021, the number of imprisoned people increased by 3.9% . This trend is consistent with the 4.1% increase reported between October 2020 and January 2021.
Overcrowding is an issue for specific types of prison facilities
yes
Overcrowding is mainly concentrated in institutions where untried prisoners and people condemned to short sentences are held. In theory, these two populations are separated. This overpopulation also affects overseas facilities.
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Tarbes prison is the most overcrowded in the country, with an occupation level of 192,6%. The authorities described this as “quite a new, situational phenomenon, almost entirely due to sanitary constraints (COVID-19), when a unit was assigned for new arrivals and prisoners returning from temporary leaves, who were quarantined there”. 14 prisoners were forced to sleep on mattresses on the floor.
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Justice courts resumed their activities, resulting in a rise in the number of imprisonment measures, especially in remand detention facilities. More than 60 prisons or wards were overcrowded by 120%, with nearly 20 at 150%.
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Remand centres reported the most overcrowding, with an average rate of 125.4%.
Security staff carry
- firearms
- non-lethal weapons
Security personnel do not carry firearms. The use of a firearm is possible from the watchtower in the event of an escape and is regulated. Each prison has an armoury, reserved for serious and violent incidents.
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Lyon inter-regional authorities decided to equip all Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes prisons with rubber ball blast grenade launchers (LBD). Prison employees are wary of this decision. The secretary of the UFAP-UNSa Justice de Lyon Union stated, “As far as I am concerned, an ‘LBD’ can be more dangerous than a shotgun, as a shotgun has a very limited scope. ‘LBDs’ can cause serious injuries.” They are meant to be used only in certain situations (escape attempts, mass movements, the use of knives) and by order of the head of the facility. Proper staff training will be required.
All prisoners are allowed to work
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The law known as “trust in the justice system” makes provisions for the implementation of a prison employment contract to replace the current one-sided approach to work commitments. Benefits (unemployment, retirement) will be included in this new contract, as proposed in 2018 in a speech made by the President of the Republic at the École nationale d’administration pénitentiaire. The law was adopted during the first reading on 25 May 2021. The French branch of the International Observatory of Prisons called this “undeniable progress”. However, it regretted that the text “does not emphasise that employment during imprisonment should be a tool for re-integration and empowerment, separate from the idea of punishment”.
Specific categories of prisoners are ineligible for sentence adjustment
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The proposed “anti-terrorism and intelligence” bill passed at first reading in the National Assembly. The bill provides for two measures to be used to counter the risk of releasing prisoners from prison who are judged to have been radicalised. The government and the majority proposed that “individual administrative control and surveillance measures” be implemented for one or two years.
The law provides for a sentence adjustment system
Certain sentence adjustments are automatic, as are certain sentence reductions. But these may be overturned by the sentencing judge. Others are subject to specific conditions, such as conditional release (libération conditionnelle (LC)), electronic surveillance (placement sous surveillance électronique (PSE)), day parole (semi-liberté (SL)), supervised outside placement (placement extérieur (PE)) or even the recently introduced release under constraint (libération sous contrainte). Each of these measures has its own particular procedure.
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The Minister of Justice, Éric Dupond-Moretti, presented an overview of his bill on “trust in the justice system”. It includes the suspension of automatic sentence reduction credits put in place in 2004 : “What I would like to see is a stop to the hypocrisy and the restoration of integrity in the system: remission of sentences, yes, if it benefits society, prison staff, and the prisoner himself, who should be the one making the necessary efforts at reintegration”. Other provisions were introduced, such as videotaped trials, the re-enforcement of lawyer confidentiality and even recourse to mediation.
The country has been condemned by an international court for its prison overcrowding
yes
The European Court of Human Rights condemned France 17 times due to the conditions of detention, which violated Article 3 of the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture, which prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment.
On 30 January 2020, in a judgement considered ‘historic’ by observers, the European Court of Human Rights ruled against France once more. The Court decided that Article 3 had been violated (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) due to poor conditions of detention. The Court ordered that the French authorities “must put an end to overcrowding in prisons and to degrading conditions of detention” (See press release). It noted that there is a “structural problem” and made recommendations on how to remedy it.
Between 2015 and 2018, a number of appeals were made by 32 prisoners held in the following prisons: Baie-Mahault (Guadeloupe), Ducos (Martinique), Fresnes, Nice, Nîmes, and Fa’aa Nuutania (French Polynesia). The European Court made a joint judgement “to broaden the scope” and ordered France to compensate the plaintiffs for damage suffered. The penalty is in excess of €500,000.
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Government representatives decided in favour of a text responding to the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECHR) condemnation of France in January 2020. The bill “meant to guarantee respect and dignity while in prison” introduced the recourse to a judge for anyone in prison, whether convicted or on remand, in order to put an end to undignified prison conditions. If it is a well-founded request, the judge can then order prison authorities to resolve the situation within one month, by any means possible, including a change of facilities. The Minister of Justice, Éric Dupond-Moretti, applauded the “clear, readable and effective provisions” which “respond to the need for humanity and dignity which must accompany all deprivation of liberty measures”. The law is not expected to be a tool for regulating the prison population. Some say it does not go far enough and emphasise the “structural” overcrowding as pointed out by the ECHR. One member of the Union des démocrates et indépendants (UDi) party criticised the bill as relying basically on transfers: “How is going from one overcrowded prison to another overcrowded prison an improvement?”
Number of deaths attributed to suicide
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A 16-year-old girl at Épinal Prison committed suicide. She used a pencil-sized blade to cut herself and wrote the word “sorry” on the floor using her blood. She then hanged herself with her jeans.
Number of deaths in custody
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A 28-year-old young man in custody at the Meaux-Chauconin prison died from cardiac arrest. He had refused to return to his cell after his time in the yard. His family alleged that he was “beaten to death” by prison guards.
Variation in the capacity of the prison facilities
decrease
The capacity of the French prison system decreased by 0.7% between January 2020 and January 2021. The number of available places in prisons (“operational” capacity) went from 61,037 to 60,583.
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In 2017, early in his term as President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron announced a programme to expand the country’s prison estate and to build 15,000 additional places over 10 years. Seven thousand places are expected for the end of 2022. The remaining places should be available by 2027.
The programme provides for the construction of new types of correctional facilities:-
Support programmes for the re-integration of offenders (les structures d’accompagnement vers la sortie, or SAS) with 2,000 places. They are expected to admit offenders with sentences under one year and those who are nearing the end of their long sentences.
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Two experimental prisons that will partner with prison companies to develop an employment programme that will enable prisoners to continue working after their release.
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Variation in the prison density
decrease
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On 1 April 2021, the average occupation rate was 107%. Some 830 prisoners have been sleeping on floor mattresses, but this varies significantly by region. The most overcrowded prisons are in Toulouse (130%) and Paris (118%).
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The number of prison clusters rose again during the third wave of Covid-19. Muret prison reported 41 positive cases among its prisoners. Tours prison reported 65. The week before, Santé prison detected 26 positive cases and quarantined 85 prisoners. In Fleury-Mérogis prison, 18 cases were reported in early March. This situation was mostly the result of prison overcrowding and an increase in new arrivals, an average of one thousand a month.