A remote duel at the top of the State took place on Monday evening, September 23, between Gérald Darmanin’s successor and the new Minister of Justice. “We probably need to review a certain number of executives to change a penal policy which, I think for a very, very long time, has allowed this to take hold right to non-execution of penalties. There must be sentences handed down, that the sentences handed down are also sentences executed“, Bruno Retailleau said on TF1’s 8pm news. “He must know that Justice is independent in our country. So I will have a certain number of exchanges with Bruno Retailleau. I am ready for it,” Didier Migaud had warned on France 2.
“On the one hand, you have sentences with very severe quantums of sentences. And on the other hand, even if we have a severe judge who sentences you to a prison sentence, behind that, you have the system that was created with sentence enforcement judges and detention freedom judges, which is there to unravel the meaning of the sentence and to make sentence adjustments“, explains Jean-Christophe Couvy, national secretary of the police union UN1TÉ, guest on RTL.
“If you are sentenced to prison, in the end, you may only do some electronic bracelet“, he illustrates. “So, the meaning of punishment, we have to think about that,” adds Jean-Christophe Couvy.
“Sentences are well executed in France”
“Sentences in France are being carried out,” reacts Mathieu Quinquis, lawyer and president of the French section of the International Prison Observatory. “It’s an old urban legend that some politicians regularly repeat in the public debate, to say that there would be unexecuted sentences. In reality, there are a certain number of sentences which are awaiting execution (…) because the criminal court did not have, at the time it rendered its decision, all the elements to determine the terms of execution of the sentence”, he continues.
“But sentences are well executed in Francethey are quite radically so. The number of sentences served in prison has increased in recent years. The length of time sentences are served in prison has also increased. And what Bruno Retailleau says on this point is lying and denied by the figures“, denounces the lawyer.
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