an inmate holds a doctor hostage at the remand center before surrendering

For more than an hour, an inmate held a doctor hostage in the infirmary of the Angers remand center on Tuesday, May 24, at the start of the afternoon. After threatening the doctor “without hurting her”according to the prison administration, the man surrendered. He is now in custody.

Motivated by reasons “personal”unrelated to “his conditions of detention”, “the prisoner had made a homemade weapon with a pen”, said the public prosecutor of Angers, Eric Bouillard. The man said he feared for him and his family and asked to be transferred to another prison, a union source told franceinfo. He surendered “hasnearly that the departmental security has agreed to negotiate with him”. The prisoner was in this remand center in pre-trial detention for a common law reason.

The Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti, has “warmly thanked the prison officers and the police who showed great professionalism” on Twitterspecifying to have exchanged with the doctor.

The Angers remand center has already experienced a hostage taking. Already on February 9, 2018, a 30-year-old prisoner sentenced to 5 years in prison had placed a razor blade in a pen and threatened a doctor. No injuries were reported.