Isolate the “hundred biggest drug traffickers” In “a high security prison”. The Minister of Justice specified, Sunday January 12, in an interview on LCI, that he wanted this measure to be implemented in the summer, which is part of his plan to fight drug trafficking and organized crime. “We must change everything in the fight against drug trafficking”estimated Gérald Darmanin. While the Minister of Justice hears “hit very hard” against this “internal security threat”, franceinfo looks back on the creation of this high security establishment and the questions its application raises.
1 What did Gérald Darmanin specify about this measure?
On Sunday, the Minister of Justice explained how he planned to make concrete the measure he had announced on December 28, four days after taking office. “We are going to take a French prison, we are going to empty it of the people who are there and we will put there, since we will have it totally isolated, totally secure, with particularly trained, anonymized prison officers”, THE “100 biggest drug traffickers”, THE “pires”declared Gérald Darmanin.
“We must do against drugs what we did against terrorism and which worked, even if there are still attacks,” reaffirmed the minister on LCI. “Today, we isolate certain traffickers among other detainees and we can clearly see that it does not work, this system of mixing which consists of putting terrorists, criminals, people who have run over people with their cars, people who hit their wives (…) in the same prison”he added. “We will start by isolating the first 100” biggest drug traffickers, “then we'll do the next 200, then [de nouveau] the next 200…”added Gérald Darmanin. “We are going to show that when you are in prison and you are a drug trafficker, you cannot make telephone calls and you cannot have a pleasant life”he insisted.
The minister had first considered a “reinforced isolation” of these detainees in their respective prisons, “by searching them and particularly jamming their communications”. During a visit to Marseille on January 2, he said he wanted to set up a “technique” of “the show apartment”as in real estate, in order to apply a “demonstration by example” in “starting with the first 100 drug traffickers”.
2 Where and when could this project be implemented?
Gérald Darmanin clarified on Sunday that he “two prisons in mind”without mentioning which ones. According to a union source at franceinfo, the Vendin-le-Vieil penitentiary center (Pas-de-Calais) and the Alençon-Condé-sur-Sarthe penitentiary center (Orne) meet security criteria. Because this type of establishment requires being equipped with efficient jamming to avoid any communication with the outside world.
The minister plans to implement this “high security prison” in the summer. “I don’t need a law for that, I need the will and we will have it, a little bit of money and I will have it”, he assured LCI, without detailing what he implied in these statements.
3 What are the reactions?
“As with terrorism, we have always said that we need specific establishments and not specific neighborhoods within an establishment” to isolate drug traffickers, Emmanuel Baudin, general secretary of Force Ouvrière Justice, approved on Franceinfo on Monday. For his part, Eric Fievez, from the CFDT Pénitentiaire, believes that “Putting all the dangerous inmates in the same place will pose a security problem.” “I am not in favor of bringing everyone together on the same site”, pressed Monday, on franceinfoJoaquim Pueyo, various left-wing mayor of Alençon and former director of the prisons of Fresnes and Fleury-Mérogis, who instead advocates “dispatcher” drug traffickers “on secure sites”.
On January 2, the general secretary of the Ufap-Unsa Justice union, Emmanuel Chambaud, expressed his skepticism about this measure on franceinfo. “How to identify [les 100 plus grands narcotrafiquants] ? On what criteria?” had questioned lawyer Ménya Arab-Tigrine on the same day. She had denounced on the microphone of franceinfo a “shock announcement” et “inapplicable”, before recalling that obtaining such a list involves breaching judicial secrecy.
For Frédéric Ploquin, specialist in organized crime, it will be “very difficult” of “choose” the prisoners concerned. In an interview on RMC, Monday morning, the investigative journalist pointed out other problems: ““From the moment you put them in the same prison, there will be a bloodbath in the prison.” either “They take advantage of this promiscuity to form the biggest cartel of tomorrow.” According to him, the “real difficulty”, in the creation of this establishment, lies in the sound insulation of “these individuals, so that they stop managing their traffic”.
“It’s an excellent idea, but it requires a lot of resources, it seems quite complicated to me to complete this project in a few months,” emphasized for his part on BFM Bruno Bartocetti, head of the southern zone of the SGP Police-FO Unit union.
Related News :