Everything was ready, or almost. At the start of autumn 2018, the 7,700 inhabitants of La Couronne, a small town in Charente, had become accustomed to the idea of welcoming a new prison with 400 places on their territory. The building was to be built on the former Lafarge industrial estate, promising new jobs in the region and a revival of activity for the city, located fifteen minutes from Angoulême and its high court (TGI). Two years earlier, on October 6, 2016, during a visit to the National School of Prison Administration, Prime Minister Manuel Valls promised an ambitious plan to combat prison overcrowding, citing the creation of “33 new penitentiary establishments” in France, or “10,000 to 16,000 additional cells”. Direct realization of this promise, the La Couronne project was even made official by the Minister of Justice Jean-Jacques Urvoas in February 2017, in a document presenting the 33 plots of land chosen to build these new prisons. The commitment seemed solid – but this remand center will never see the light of day.
In October 2018, the mayor (PS) of the commune Jean-François Dauré learned from the press that his project was ultimately not accepted by the new government. The Minister of Justice Nicole Belloubet, appointed a year ago, has just launched her own prison real estate program, called “plan 15,000” – for 15,000 additional prison places over ten years -, with her own map of new establishments, her own budget and schedule. “It was a bit of a cold shower: we had worked on the subject for a long time, and our lifeline in terms of jobs and welcoming new residents suddenly evaporated,” recalls Jean-François Dauré . The new Minister of Justice is proposing another project to local elected officials, raising the possibility of an experimental prison with 100 places in the area – which the mayor refuses.
“We reduced the number of jobs and potential residents, with prisoners who had the possibility of leaving at the end of their sentence to train or work in the territory… The acceptability was no longer the same”, justifies the mayor . The prison project in his commune is simply abandoned, like the majority of projects announced a few months earlier by Jean-Jacques Urvoas, such as in Cherbourg (Cotentin), Chalon-sur-Saône (Saône-et-Loire ) or Narbonne (Aude). The Ministry of Justice nevertheless indicates to L’Express that the “15,000” program is a continuation of Jean-Jacques Urvoas’ announcements, and was “not designed ex nihilo”. On the other hand, “the reluctance of certain local elected officials to accommodate prison establishments and difficulties in finding available land have led to the substitution of certain projects for others, the overall objectives in terms of places being nevertheless maintained, as well as the land research specifications”, it is specified.
Other proposals from the former Minister of Justice are included in Nicole Belloubet’s 15,000 plan, but relocated or reworked. This is the case of the new Gard prison, first planned in Alès, which will ultimately be located in Nîmes with a capacity of 700 places, or that of Vannes, the construction of which was initially proposed under the Hollande five-year term. . According to the latest activity report of the Public Agency for Justice Real Estate (Apij), the establishment must be delivered in 2027. Nine years later. Finally, other projects promised by Manuel Valls are simply suspended due to lack of available land, such as in Nice or Corsica.
In this millefeuille of plans which overlap, cancel each other, remain in abeyance or are delayed, the promises made by successive governments seem difficult to keep. To the point that a information report was filed on the subject in 2023 by the Finance Committee of the National Assembly. Its title is unequivocal: on the subject of planning the construction of prisons, special rapporteur Patrick Hetzel spoke of “inexorable procrastination”.
“Inability to meet deadlines”
The report recalls in particular that despite the numerous successive construction programs launched since the 1980s, prisons have been filled to more than 100% of their capacity for almost forty-five years. According to Patrick Hetzel, this result is explained “in part by the ministry’s inability to respect the deadlines and objectives defined during the design of the various plans”. From 1989, the 25,000 detention places announced by Minister of Justice Albin Chalandon two years earlier were reduced to include the construction of 13,000 places. Ultimately, only 11,013 places will emerge. Same results for the “4,000” program launched in 1995, at the end of which only 2,736 net places were opened; for the “13,200 plan” launched by Dominique Perben in 2002 which was ultimately revised downwards and for which the deadlines were “significantly extended”; or even for the “new real estate program” launched in 2011 by Minister Michel Mercier, for which, a year later, 13 operations had been abandoned and 7 projects postponed.
In total, the Finance Committee’s report records the creation of 28,000 detention places between 1988 and 2016, compared to 33,000 promised within the framework of successive real estate programs – not to mention that these new places sometimes replace the closure of old dilapidated prisons. The “15,000 plan” is no exception to the rule: while 7,000 places should have been delivered by the end of 2022, only 2,441 had been built, of which “a certain number were part of programs of constructions announced in 2012 or 2014″, underlines Patrick Hetzel, who specifies that “only around 400 open places are attributable to projects launched from the end of 2018”. Of the 8,000 places supposed to be built between 2022 and 2027, the rapporteur is not more optimistic: “Everything therefore suggests that this deadline will not be met and that a significant remainder of places will be delivered by 2029 or 2030,” he believes.
Questioned on the subject, the prison administration mentions “the difficulty of land searches”, “the health crisis and the international context” to justify these delays, and wants to be reassuring about the continuation of its plan: “The delivery of penitentiary establishments in construction accelerated between 2022 and 2024, allowing […] the commissioning of almost half of the establishments of the 50 prisons of the 15,000 plan at the end of 2024.”
“It’s extraordinarily difficult.”
Former Minister of Justice Jean-Jacques Urvoas, for his part, does not hide the difficulties faced by the ministry’s teams and Apij in making the promises made on the construction of prison places a reality. “Just identifying the land is extraordinarily difficult,” confides the former Minister of Justice. It must be said that the specifications are particularly dense: the new land must be located near police stations or courts, be connected by an efficient transport network, comply with a series of environmental standards, etc. While avoiding overly urbanized places. – where real estate would be devalued and noise disturbances would be too great –, hilly areas – where untimely parcel deliveries would be made easier –, or plots of land overflown by air transport. Once these places have been identified, opposition from elected officials, associations and local residents can also seriously delay the construction of these places.
“I remember very well that we had, in certain cases, defined land against the advice of the mayors. I had asked the prefects to be coercive, in a context where many elected officials are demanding new places, but refusing that they be built at home”, comments Jean-Jacques Urvoas. In certain municipalities, the construction of penitentiary establishments is bogged down in appeals filed by local residents or local elected officials. In Muret (Haute-Garonne), the creation of a prison with 600 places has, for example, been at the heart of tensions for almost ten years. In 2016, the mayor of the commune André Mandement assured that he had given his agreement to the cabinet of Manuel Valls for the extension of an already existing remand center, within the limit of “170 additional detainees”. A few months later, Jean-Jacques Urvoas’ plan mentions the construction of a new establishment with 600 places in the town – a proposal which will be included in “the 15,000 plan”, despite the protests of the councilor. “It no longer had anything to do with the project for which I agreed!” he despairs.
Several associations are drastically opposed to the project, arguing that the selected site is located in a protected agricultural zone, crossed by an irrigation canal. Despite various appeals, the prefect of Haute-Garonne finally filed a prefectural decree in July 2021, declaring the construction of the prison “of public utility”. The establishment, the construction of which was announced by the Valls government in 2016, should indeed be delivered by 2027 as part of the “15,000” plan launched by Nicole Belloubet, and will perhaps see the light of day under the Barnier government – who himself has just guaranteed the construction of new prison places during his general policy speech on October 1st.
“Eminently political” subject
“There is a real subject of political communication here: everyone wants to launch their own prison plan, even though those of their predecessors are in progress. It then becomes very difficult to know to whom to blame the delays, the abandonments or the actual construction of such and such a project”, explains Anaïs Henneguelle, lecturer in economics at Paris-Cité University and specialist in the prison world. Jean-Jacques Urvoas himself admits that the subject is “eminently political”. “In the collective imagination of this country, there can be no other punishment than deprivation of liberty,” he relates. In the meantime, the problem of overpopulation in prison has not been resolved: for twenty years, the evolution curves of the prison population and the number of places available have evolved almost in parallel, with the exception of the Covid years, when several thousand detainees had been released.
“Public policy is trying to catch up, in vain: we realize that the more prison places we build, the more we incarcerate, with longer and longer sentences. We are in a vicious circle,” believes Prune Missoffe , head of advocacy at the International Prison Observatory (OIP). As of September 1, 2024, prison density stood at 127.3% in France – even reaching more than 200% in certain establishments, such as the Bayonne remand center. Concretely, 155 people were detained there last month, for a capacity of 75 places.
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