France’s prison crisis has been years in the making—and now, after repeated warnings of a system at breaking point, Paris is considering early releases for convicted offenders, raising fresh concerns about public safety.
Florent Boudié, a lawmaker close to Emmanuel Macron and who is in regular contact with Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin, argues the plan would ease overcrowding.
However, Pierre-Marie Sève, director of the Institute for Justice, stressed that while “prison overcrowding causes undeniable difficulties for prison guards … that is absolutely no reason to release offenders.”
Just because Emmanuel Macron failed to build prisons doesn’t mean the French should pay.
His think tank has launched a petition against the idea of a ‘prison ceiling,’ which it describes as being “emblematic of the Left.”
This mechanism is quite simple: to put one offender in prison, the judge will have to release another. It doesn’t matter that both offenders are equally dangerous. It doesn’t matter that the released offender hasn’t finished his sentence. This measure is utter madness.
Prison guards blockaded facilities across the country in protest at chronic overcrowding and staff shortages on Monday, and called for emergency measures to fill an estimated 5,000 vacant guard posts.
Marine Le Pen expressed her support for the demonstrators on social media, saying that Macron’s administration has “failed and abandoned them.”
Prison overcrowding is the consequence of Emmanuel Macron’s renunciation, despite his commitment in 2017, to build 15,000 additional prison places, and of the Macronist government’s inability to accelerate the expulsion of foreign offenders and criminals, who today represent 23% of inmates in French prisons.
And Alexandre Loubet, Rassemblement National MP for Moselle, agreed that if France’s next elections result in a change in government, the country may be able to “finally deport the foreign inmates and build new places.”
Michael Curzon is a news writer for europeanconservative.com based in England’s Midlands. He is also Editor of Bournbrook Magazine, which he founded in 2019, and previously wrote for London’s Express Online. His Twitter handle is @MichaelCurzon_.
