Funny way to prepare for the future discussion on the immigration bill than to go to the Fresnes prison (Val-de-Marne), but for the six National Rally deputies present during the visit organized on November 29, it There is nothing but very logical there. Edwige Diaz, the member for Gironde, the party’s referent on this subject, barely said it after crossing the prison door, when the director asked her the angle of the visit: “We are here to show our support for the staff penitentiary, but above all, within the framework of the immigration law, to make the link between prison overcrowding and the percentage of foreigners”. A few days ago, she went to an administrative detention center (CRA) and intends to continue her journey in the waiting area of an airport where foreigners are waiting for their expulsion.
This morning of November 29, there are six members of the parliamentary group to use their right to enter penitentiary centers on simple request, accompanied by several assistants and a few journalists. Very quickly, the questions focus on very specific points. How many foreigners are there in the prison population? Is there a neighborhood for radicalized people? Only in the women’s quarter? Is it possible to get there? The answers are coming, factual. There are nearly 1,900 detainees for 1,350 places. It’s true, the proportion of foreigners is high, around 40%, or just over 880 people. But, adds the director of the prison, it is also a specificity of the Ile de France where nationalities mingle much more than elsewhere.
The proximity of Orly airport has something to do with it either, since people who will be deported in the days and weeks to come are being held here. Edwige Diaz asks her fellow deputies to take notes. She entrusted her phone to one of her collaborators so that he could take pictures – this visit must be publicized – but she has nothing left to write down.
Edwige Diaz, MP for Gironde (right), Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella at the Assembly in November (Photo by Alain JOCARD / AFP)
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The deputies set out for the actual visit. Walking areas being renovated, exteriors, disciplinary quarters, isolation quarters, checkpoint, the visit takes place without dragging. Arrived at 8 am, the deputies have only two hours in front of them. Then they must join the National Assembly for their group meeting. And at the end of the morning, they want to support the butchers who demonstrate in front of the Bourbon Palace. From the courtyard, the elected officials are surprised at the garlands that run from one cell to another and allow prisoners to do without objects. Do you ever take them off? Yes, but we can’t remove them all the time. Among the prison staff, no one says it, but everyone knows it, exchanges between prisoners are a way of keeping tension at an acceptable level.
Dangerousness, nationality… are at the heart of the questions
Members do not feel bound by the same reserve. One of them presents a journalist from the site of the radical right Boulevard Voltaire, of a “healthy reading”. Another discreetly comments on the obtaining from the share of foreign prisoners among the prison population of a “it’s really good that we have the figures by an official channel, we will stop telling us that we are in the fantasy” . All remain stoic in the face of the cries of prisoners bursting from the windows. They continue their questions, is prison a school for crime? Are detainees classified by dangerousness? We quote Jacques Audiard and the Prophet.
The head of the prison dares a “it’s a little more complicated than that”. Strangely, no one mentions the “Fresnes karting affair” which, in August, hit the headlines and aroused many criticisms after a karting activity was organized in the prison courtyard, filmed and posted on social media. At the time, however, the National Rally was not the last to cry out against government laxity.
We re-enter the building, it’s time to head towards the women’s quarters if we want to keep up the pace. A last stop in the courtyard, the wall and the large painted circle mentioning the prison of Fresnes form the ideal frame for photos now that it is daylight. In small groups, the deputies pose. It lasts a bit. We end up heading towards the wing of the prison that houses the women. A brief tour of the side of the courtyard where some train for the Telethon, then direction the district of evaluation of the radicalization where stay seven women, for the majority of return of Kurdistan. The deputies put forward a final question: how many are French? All, answers the head of the unit, otherwise we would not have repatriated them… Ah, yes, of course, retorts Edwige Diaz, that’s why we are asking for the forfeiture of nationality. More than two hours have passed. She leaves with a bag full of arguments in anticipation of the bill scheduled for early 2023. A moment that will finally allow her, she hopes, to say all the bad things she thinks of government policy on immigration. . On December 6, during the debate without a vote in the National Assembly, on the other hand, it is Marine Le Pen who will speak and set the tone for her party.