In the Loire, the Talaudière prison is one of the oldest in France. Its dilapidated and unsanitary buildings should have been razed and rebuilt five years ago, but the project never saw the light of day. “L’œil du 20 heures” was able to visit it and note that the conditions of detention of detainees are struggling to improve.
The diagnosis was made: “La Talaudière, you will see, it is the worst prison in France”, deplored all the union officials of the prison officers whom we had contacted before our visit. We were able to enter a few days later with our camera, thanks to the visitation rights of the LFI deputy for the Loire, Andrée Taurinya. An unexpected visit, without informing the management of the penitentiary center, in order to discover the premises “as is”.
Since its construction in 1968, little or nothing has changed in Building A, the main men’s quarters. A single wooden staircase leads to the three floors. The walls are blistered by humidity and there have been more and more water infiltrations since the overroof flew away during a storm in the fall of 2022. It has not yet been replaced.
“It deteriorates all the more quickly as the overpopulation is important”, confides Lionel*, one of the supervisors. Here, prison overcrowding reached 146.7%, above the national average. In the cells sized for two people, several prisoners sleep on the floor. 9m dark rooms2 where the windows malfunction – when they sometimes simply have no panes left – and, very often, as a partition for the toilets, a simple piece of fabric.
Feces on the walls
Unsanitary conditions invite themselves into the collective showers. Electric cables hang bare above the cabins. In the prison sanitary unit, excrement dots the walls. “We had already noticed this in the same place, when we visited the prison last November, with the International Observatory of Prisons (OIP). It is to be regretted that nothing has changed for four months”comments Andrée Taurinya.
Conditions that prisoners find difficult, as a prisoner in a disciplinary unit confides to us. “To keep a minimum of hygiene, it’s the D system.” He shows us the products he bought himself or bartered with other prisoners, to maintain his cell. There again, excrement on the walls, toilets eaten away by filth and rust. Contrary to what should be the rule, “we never receive a weekly hygiene kit”he asserts.
“Someone who has a headache, he commits suicide, in a cell like that! I myself thought of suicide in a cell like that, and at one time, there weren’t even any windows! C is the worst mitard in France!”
Luis*, detained at the Talaudière prisonto “The eye of 20 hours”
Within the walls of the prison, diseases circulate. “During my first stay at La Talaudière, I caught scabies, like other prisoners… it’s a disease from the Middle Ages!” says Samir*, who served three sentences there, the last of which ended this winter.
“In winter, it’s so cold and humid in the cells that we had to sleep fully dressed, with a hat, a bathrobe over it… It’s serious. In addition, I had white patches all over my body. the body was fungi, a skin disease that I must have caught in the showers or with the humidity.”
Samir, former detainee at La Talaudièreto “The eye of 20 hours”
Some guards even admit that the conditions of detention and overcrowding deteriorate working conditions. “The more inmates we put with mattresses on the floor, the more the condition of the cells will deteriorate… This is a phenomenon that accentuates the problems. We find ourselves in tense situations”breathes Lionel*, who has worked here for eight years.
The International Prison Observatory (OIP) seized the administrative court of Lyon last month, to force the prison administration to carry out emergency work. In its interim release, the OIP makes this observation: “The great dilapidation and the significant overcrowding (…) combined with numerous lacks of hygiene and a particularly degraded sanitary situation expose the people detained in the establishment to a risk for their health and for their life.”
With the exception of the distribution of hygiene kits, the requests were rejected by the judge, who considers that the wishes for work “are unfounded”. In his order, he even qualifies the disciplinary quarter, or even the collective showers, as being “in a satisfactory state of cleanliness”. The OIP contests this decision before the Council of State.
A 30 million euro renovation
The closure of the Talaudière prison was however a consensus ten years ago. The Minister of Justice at the time, Jean-Jacques Urvoas, declared that rehabilitation was beyond the price, and announced with great fanfare the reconstruction of the prison in Saint-Bonnet-les-Oules, where land had been find.
But, in 2018, the project was abandoned in the face of protest from local residents. For lack of anything better, a rehabilitation plan was launched in 2020. To date, less than one cell in five has been renovated. In the men’s section, only 44 cells out of 209 are equipped with individual showers. The total budget for this work is 30 million euros. The prison administration concedes it however: “To solve all the technical and functional problems of a 50-year-old building, the budget envelope will not be sufficient.”
Insufficient security
Others even denounce a waste of public money, like Father Rémi Imbert, chaplain for eight years at the Talaudière prison. For him, these works would only be cosmetic. “The millions spent today are useless, because the building can’t take it anymore, it’s even poorly designed since there is only one wooden staircase to connect everything.” He adds “It is a factor of violence, of dehumanization… This prison must be razed, but the politicians have never had the courage to go all the way. We have put the particular interest before the general interest. “
In his union office at Ufap-Unsa Justice, located opposite the entrance to the prison, Stéphane Perrot shares this opinion. According to him, the prison would be so dilapidated that it would no longer ensure the safety of the agents, nor to prevent the intrusions of objects. A palisade was installed recently to raise part of the perimeter walls, but there is no anti-helicopter net and the watchtowers are “too low” to detect the drones that regularly come to deliver parcels in the exercise yard or at the windows of the detainees.
“The watchtower here, if it is 5 meters high, it is the end of the world. The driver of the drone, it can be 2 km from the establishment and there, they are not high enough, for the We manage to do excavations, we find things, but we don’t know what’s going on… A few days ago, we found five ceramic knife blades.”
Stéphane Perrot, Ufap-Unsa manager at La Talaudièreto “The eye of 20 hours”
The prison administration defends itself from any failure, claiming to have reinforced security with “the deployment of electrified anti-climbing fence, floodlights and video surveillance”. Contacted, the Ministry of Justice claims to take “very seriously” the situation of the prison, and that the works undertaken until 2026 should improve the conditions of detention of the detainees. The Ministry nevertheless recalls that “some damage is committed by the prisoners themselves”.
*Names have been changed