An inmate died on Wednesday at the Avignon-Le Pontet penitentiary center after “a violent fight” between prisoners in the promenade yard, report our colleagues from the Dauphine Libere. “The circumstances are yet to be determined,” Avignon prosecutor Florence Galtier told AFP, who visited the scene.
According to the Force Ouvrière (FO) union, “a violent fight” broke out between detainees and one of them was “stabbed”. “The supervisors did not hesitate to enter the courtyard to extract the victim in order to provide him with first aid”, in “vain because she died of her injuries”, adds FO to AFP.
An “absolute drama” for Eric Dupond-Moretti
“It’s an absolute tragedy, the death of a young man is always a tragedy,” said Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti on Wednesday noon, during a press briefing on the sidelines of a trip to the prison. Baumettes in Marseilles. “The gendarmes are on the spot”, he specified, stressing that his status as Minister of Justice does not allow him to comment on the case, nor to go to the scene.
Eric Dupond-Moretti was visiting Marseille to visit the construction site for the extension of the Baumettes prison establishment and to meet the prison staff. In place of the historic stone building now destroyed, a new remand center with 740 places should be built in Marseille by 2025 alongside a first extension of 1,182 places, “Baumettes 2” , opened in 2018. It was in this last building that on the night of Sunday to Monday, a prisoner in his thirties was seriously burned in the fire in his cell.
The Baumettes site “is part of the (national) construction plan for 15,000 places” in prison, further detailed Eric Dupond-Moretti. “Regularly, we are condemned because of the unworthy conditions (of detention) and we make a considerable effort to get out of this”, by building new establishments or renovating existing ones, he defended himself. At 1is August, 816 men and 106 women were imprisoned at Baumettes.
Prison density in France is 118.7%
Prison overcrowding is chronic in France where the number of prisoners continues to grow with 72,067 people incarcerated on the 1is July, nearly 2,000 more than four months ago, according to statistics from the Department of Justice.
Prison density was at 1is July by 118.7% compared to 112.5% a year ago. The number of operational places is indeed 60,702 places.
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