The French Minister of Justice, Gérald Darmanin, announced new plans to ensure that prisoners contribute at their expense on Monday.
Addressing the TF1 broadcaster, Darmanin said that he was planning to “modify the law” and has committed to supporting a bill on the question filed in the National Assembly in March.
According to the French Ministry of Justice, management prisons cost the French state 4 billion euros per year.
Darmanin justified his proposal by declaring that “until 2003, the prisoners contributed to the cost of their incarceration” and “just as there is a fixed hospital accusation, there was an accusation of fixed prison attendance”.
His announcement follows a series of violent attacks that targeted prisons and prison guards across France over a period of two weeks in April.
Since then, nearly 200 investigators have been working to find the culprits, and 25 suspects were detained By police officers in places across the country on Monday.
A group that calls itself the “defense of the rights of French prisoners” (defense of the rights of French prisoners, or DDPF) claimed the responsibility of the attacks.
The DDPF has targeted prisons and prisoners with videos and threats published on its telegram channel.
According to the French government, the prison attacks were part of a coordinated effort and came in response to a national drug trafficking that has been underway since February.
As part of this campaign, the government plans to Transfer 200 of the country's most dangerous drug traffickers with two high security prisons by October.
In addition to his television interview, the Minister of Justice shared an open letter on X on Monday expressing his “total determination” to allow prisoners to “work better, safely”.
“Absolutely unacceptable violence and threats committed against you (prison agents) and prisons in recent days have rightly shocked you,” he wrote, continuing to list a series of measures intended to ensure the anonymity of the guards.
France has received multiple convictions from the European Court of Human Rights with regard to poor prison conditions.
The latest figures from the prisoners' population in France, which were published on April 1, reveal that 81,600 people are currently serving times behind bars. This is well above the total number of prison places that France officially provides, which amounts to 62,363.
