The mayor of Grasse calls for an extension of the prison, Christian Estrosi supports him

Jérôme Viaud published a column on Tuesday, December 17, to encourage the State to commit to an expansion project that he believes is necessary in the face of the problem of prison overpopulation.

Like other prisons in France, the Grasse remand center (Alpes-Maritimes) is faced with prison overcrowding. According to the International Prison Observatory, as of January 1, it had 708 inmates for 574 places.

In this context, Jérôme Viaud, Les Républicains mayor of the commune, pleads for an extension of the Maralpine prison. The man who is also president of the agglomeration made this intention public in a column published this Tuesday, December 17.

“The question of strengthening our prison capacities is essential to enable a strong penal response that meets the challenges,” he writes.

Emmanuel Macron’s broken promise

The local elected official recalls that Emmanuel Macron had set in 2017 “an ambitious milestone” of 15,000 new places by 2027. “Today, we are unfortunately far from this objective with only 4,500 places created”, regrets -he.

However, in Grasse, “we also have the land rights to allow the realization of such a project”. A “central issue”, underlines the councilor, being “the subject of a broad political consensus”.

The expansion of the remand center is justified on two counts, according to Jérôme Viaud. The mayor of Grasse believes that it would allow “the reduction of prison overpopulation in the Alpes-Maritimes, which hampers not only detention conditions but also the work of prison officers”, while reinforcing “the centrality of Grasse in the system departmental judiciary”.

Means and personnel

The fact remains that the project cannot be completed in the absence of “strong guarantees from the State, which must commit to supporting our community at different levels”, says Jérôme Viaud.

At the same time, the establishment “will not be able to operate effectively without a significant increase in prison staff, the national police and magistrates”.

On X, Christian Estrosi welcomed “the responsible comments of the mayor of Grasse”. For several years, the mayor of Nice has also campaigned for an expansion of the remand center. To this effect, he sent a letter to Éric Dupond-Moretti, then Minister of Justice, in January 2021.