Strangely, in this case, everyone is right. Starting with Éric Dupond-Moretti, who ordered an investigation after the broadcast of images showing inmates driving go-karts: a place of deprivation of liberty, where convicts are supposed to serve their sentence, is not an amusement park . What made the Keeper of the Seals say on Twitter: “The fight against recidivism goes through reintegration but certainly not through karting!”
After the shocking images from Fresnes prison, I immediately ordered an investigation to shed light. The fight against recidivism goes through reintegration but certainly not through karting!
— Eric Dupond-Moretti (@E_DupondM) August 20, 2022
A priori, his reaction is all that is most logical. The problem is that his ministry apparently knew. An internal investigation must determine it. It should go very quickly. The minister’s office was aware, but not the Keeper of the Seals personally.
The ministry, however, claims that it did not know that there were karts in the project called Kohlanness, broadcast on You Tube and inspired by the Koh Lanta of TF1, and whose goal is to raise funds for three associations that work to recreate social ties. He didn’t know but… the ministry’s communications team was visibly present on site on the day of filming, July 27, to accompany journalists and validate the images before they were broadcast.
A report was even published two days later, in the local pages of the Parisian. Entitled “The Koh Lanta of the cities escapes in prison”, the article recounts this moment of fraternization between inmates and guards. Which didn’t bother anyone. It must be said that we were in the middle of a heat wave, in the middle of holidays and forest fires.
But the images, which looped on social networks, without contextualization, could only shock public opinion. The opposition, on the right of the chessboard, seized it. Two quotes among others: Marine Le Pen for the National Rally affirms that “the Fresnes scandal illustrates the collapse of state authority.” Eric Ciotti, at Les Républicains: “Our prisons are not summer camps.”
The rebellious deputy Louis Boyard, in reaction, recalls the poor conditions of detention in Fresnes and pleads to bring back a little humanity there. On closer inspection, the three opinions are not contradictory. The crime figures are in the red. The French do not trust the government to solve the problems of insecurity. And recidivism after prison is still too high in France.
The recreation of Fresnes, in the era of social networks, without an immunity totem, could only skid. The debate on justice, prison and reintegration deserves better than a kart race.