ADVERTISEMENTFrance’s Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin announced new plans to make prisoners contribute to their incarceration costs on Monday.
Speaking to broadcaster TF1, Darmanin said he planned to “amend the law” and pledged to back a bill on the issue tabled in the National Assembly in March.
According to the French Ministry of Justice, running prisons costs the French state €4 billion per year.
Darmanin justified his proposal by stating that “until 2003, prisoners contributed to the cost of their incarceration” and “just as there is a fixed hospital charge, there was a fixed prison attendance charge”.
His announcement follows a series of violent attacks which targeted prisons and prison guards across France over a two-week period in April.
Since then, close to 200 investigators have been working to track down the culprits, and 25 suspects were detained by law enforcement officers in locations across the country on Monday.
A group which calls itself the “defence of the rights of French prisoners” (défense des droits des prisonniers français, or DDPF) has claimed responsibility for the attacks.
The DDPF has targeted prisons and prison officers with videos and threats posted on its Telegram channel.
According to the French government, the prison attacks were part of a coordinated effort and came in response to a national crackdown on drug trafficking that has been underway since February.
As part of this drive, the government plans to transfer 200 of the country’s most dangerous drug traffickers to two high-security prisons by October.
As well as his TV interview, the Justice Minister shared open letter on X on Monday expressing his “total determination“ to enable prison officers to “work better, in total security”.
“The absolutely unacceptable violence and threats committed against you [prison officers] and prisons in recent days have rightly shocked you”, he wrote, going on to list a range of measures meant to ensure guards’ anonymity.
France has received multiple condemnations from the European Court of Human Rights in relation to poor prison conditions.
The latest figures for the inmate population in France, which were released on 1 April, reveal that 81,600 people are currently serving time behind bars. This is far above the total number of prison places France officially provides, which stands at 62,363.
