A hearing is held on Tuesday before the administrative court of Toulouse on the unsanitary conditions of detention at the prison of Seysses, near Toulouse.
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“It is unimaginable the way in which prisoners are made to live in France”denounced Tuesday July 26 on franceinfo Dominique Simonnot, general controller of the places of deprivation of liberty, while a hearing is held before the administrative court of Toulouse on the conditions of detention in the prison of Seysses (Haute-Garonne). “It’s scary. You can’t imagine. You have to go there to see what it is”she explains. “They are 22 hours a day at three in a cell where there is hardly room to move. It is unbreathable. I do not believe that one comes out of detention better when one has been locked up in these conditions. “
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In January 2020, France was condemned by the European Court of Human Rights for its prison overcrowding and conditions of detention. “At the end of the year, Europe will come back to see what France has done against overpopulation. I think we are going to take full advantage of it”estimated Dominique Simonnot. “I find it very strange from a government that only has Europe in its mouth to sit down like that on European decisions.”
In one year, she said, the number of detainees sleeping on a mattress on the floor has doubled to 1,885 detainees. “We must send fewer people to prison”she pleaded. “Sleeping on the floor means being in contact with small cockroaches that mingle with the dust. That’s why prisoners sleep with toilet paper in their ears and nose.” Finally, the controller general of places of deprivation of liberty recalled that a detainee currently costs taxpayers 110 euros per day.