a young homeless person requests the postponement of her trial… to sleep in prison

Géraldine*, a small brown woman with a pale complexion, arrived with a smile on her face this Monday, January 20, 2025, in front of her judges, as if she wanted to play a trick at the Évry-Courcouronnes criminal court. “ Keep me in prisonplease,” she said straight away while clasping her hands in prayer. In a playful tone, she developed her arguments for the public prosecutor to request her continued pre-trial detention before her judgment which will be held on March 27.

A life strewn with pitfalls

“When I'm outside, I do anything. I have an administrative phobia. I don't keep my appointments and my social following. I am incapable of managing myself,” she justified herself to achieve her goal. “If you put me back in prison, you will not be disappointed », she continued in front of the stunned look of her judges.

Behind this jovial facade, Géraldine's life, briefly mentioned in the audience, is nothing but a gaping wound. The young woman was placed from the age of 2 from child welfare services. His parents were stripped of their parental authority.

“Her progenitor” whom she refuses to call otherwise was sentenced, a few years ago, to 17 years in prisonfor acts of pedophilia against his own children. He ended up committing suicide during his incarceration in Caen. “In my life, there is something heavy,” exclaimed Géraldine, going from laughter to tears in the space of an instant.

It is she who denounced his father to save herself and her sisters from her foul-smelling clutches. “I saved their skin, but not mine,” she finally blurted out between sobs.

“She asked me to do everything to keep her in detention”

For several years, in an endless flight, the young woman has crisscrossed France from city to city where she settles from squat to squat. She was convicted in Toulouse, Nantes, Lyon and Lorient. She was imprisoned in Germany for stealing a traveler's suitcase.

Her destiny came to an end once again, on January 16, when she was arrested in flagrante delicto, while trying to enter, with accomplices, an abandoned pavilion in Athis-Mons. In addition to this home invasion, she was also prosecuted for outrage and violence towards police officers. His one-night partners were placed under judicial supervision. But Geraldine's immediate plan is to sleep in prison.

“In 26 years at the bar, I have never experienced this», assured his lawyer. “She asked me to do everything to keep her in detention,” he continued, almost dismayed.

When the deliberations returned, the court ordered his continued detention. Geraldine hasbrandished his closed fistas if she had just won a victory. The same evening, she celebrated her 27th birthday behind bars at the Fleury-Mérogis women's prison.

*The first name has been changed.

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