The diagnosis was made: “La Talaudière, you will see, it is the worst prison in France”, complained 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 right of visit of the deputy of France Insoumise de la Loire, Andrée Taurinya. An unexpected visit, without informing the management of the 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 the water infiltrations are more and more numerous since the over-roof flew away during a storm in the fall of 2022, and to date has not yet been replaced.
“It deteriorates all the more quickly as the overcrowding is important”, confides Lionel* to us, one of the supervisors on the spot. Here, prison overcrowding reaches 146.7%, which is above the national average. In the cells sized for two people, several prisoners sleep on the floor. Dark rooms of 9m2 where the windows malfunction – sometimes they simply no longer have panes – and very often, as a partition for the toilets, a simple piece of fabric.
Unsanitary conditions invite themselves into the collective showers. We see electrical cables suspended, bare, above the cabins. In the sanitary unit of the prison, excrement is present on 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 deplored that nothing has changed for four months. commented Andrée Taurinya.
Conditions that prisoners find difficult, as one prisoner confided to us, in a disciplinary unit. “To keep a minimum of hygiene, it’s system D.” He shows us the products he has bought himself or bartered with other prisoners, to maintain his cell. There again, excrement on the walls, toilets eaten away by filth and rust. “We never receive a weekly hygiene kit,” he asserts, contrary to what should be the rule.
Someone with a headache 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! This is the worst mitard in France!
Luis*, detained at the Talaudière prison
Within the confines of the prison, certain 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 at La Talaudière, the last of which ended this winter.
In winter, it’s so cold and damp 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, it was fungus, a skin disease that I must have caught in the showers or with the humidity. »
Samir, former detainee at La Talaudière.
Some guards even admit that the conditions of detention and overcrowding deteriorate working conditions. “The more detainees we put with mattresses on the floor, the more the state of the cells will deteriorate… it’s 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 challenges: “The great dilapidation and the significant overcrowding (…) combined with numerous lacks of hygiene and a particularly degraded sanitary situation expose the persons detained in the establishment to a risk to their health and to their lives”.
With the exception of the distribution of hygiene kits, all the requests were rejected by the judge, who considers that the wishes for work “are not justified”. In his order, he even qualifies the disciplinary quarter, or even the collective showers as being “in a satisfactory state of cleanliness”.
The International Observatory of Prisons challenges this decision before the Council of State.
30 million euros for rehabilitation
The closure of the Talaudière prison was however a consensus 10 years ago. The Minister of Justice at the time, Jean Jacques Urvoas declared that rehabilitation was unaffordable, and announced with great fanfare the reconstruction of the prison in Saint-Bonnet-les Oules, where land had been found.
In 2018, the project was finally 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 budgetary envelope will not be sufficient. »
Others even denounce a waste of public money, such as Father Rémi Imbert, chaplain for 8 years at the Talaudière prison. For him these works would be only cosmetic. “The millions spent today are useless, because the building can’t take it anymore, it is even poorly designed since there is only one wooden staircase to connect everything. » He adds « It is a factor of violence, of dehumanization… it must be razed, but the politicians have never had the courage to go all the way. We have put the interest of the individual before the general interest”.
In his trade union office in 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 are no anti-helicopter nets and the watchtowers are “too low” to detect the drones which regularly come to deliver parcels in the courtyard. promenade, or at the inmates’ windows.
The watchtower here, if it is 5 meters high, it is the end of the world. The driver of the drone, he may be 2 km from the establishment and there they are not high enough to detect them. We manage to dig, we find things, but we don’t know what’s going on… A few days ago we found 5 ceramic knife blades.
Stéphanne Perrot, UFAP-Unsa manager at La Talaudière
The prison administration defends itself from any failure, claiming to have reinforced security with “the deployment of electrified anti-climbing fence, projectors and video surveillance”. Contacted, the Ministry of Justice assures us that it takes the situation in the prison “very seriously”, and that the work undertaken until 2026 should improve the conditions of detention of detainees. The ministry recalls all the same that “certain deteriorations are committed by the prisoners themselves”.
*Names have been changed