Wet sheets at the windows, flooded cells to bring some freshness… While a new heat peak is expected between Sunday July 17 and Tuesday July 19, it is system D in French prisons. “Frankly, it’s disgusting, it’s unlivable“, breathes Samir. He who has been imprisoned for 10 years has made 23 establishments. “They crowd us like dogs. I can’t breathe in a small cell, that’s how it is, they don’t care, we have no choice“.”You’re going to get wet in the sink, it’s each his turnhe continues, there are some who take bottles of water, they wash in the toilets and water themselves”. Inmates call it “a swimming pool in a cell“.
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As the mercury soars, the exasperation mounts. Ilies, in remand for several years supports plus the fact of not being able to wash as much as he would like. Detainees cannot take more than three showers per week, for a maximum of ten minutes per session. “We get pimples, we don’t have hygiene, we smell bad“, laments Ilies. “Do you realize, half an hour of showering a week is a crazy thing.”
At the Beaumettes prison in Marseille, the situation is even more tense than elsewhere. In question, the anti-noise window installed in the 9 m² cells. Objective : reduce noise pollution of which the residents living near the prison are victims. An unacceptable device according to Charline Becker, the coordinator for the south-east region at the investigation center of the OIP (International Prison Observatory). She takes stock of the conditions of detention: “The detainees can no longer breathe, the air does not circulate, the temperatures are stifling“.
At Beaumettes, the cells face south, so they are very exposed to the sun. “The steam does not go away, the sugar melts, the smells stagnate because in these 9m², there are also toilets“, Explain Charlie Becker. Conditions that she says create a “unlivable cesspoolAt the end of their tether, some detainees break or try to dismantle these windows, which leads to disciplinary sanctions.
The International Observatory of Prisons asks for the respect of the heat wave plan in detention, deployed since 2003 in periods of high heat.
In particular, it provides that the inmates can have fans and let their loved ones bring a few bottles of water to the visiting room.