French Interior Minister Proposes Deporting Foreign Inmates to Ease Prison Overcrowding

"We have, in France, some 82,000 inmates for 62,000 places. With the indignity of having more than 4,000 inmates sleeping on floor mattresses. [...] But we also have, and sometimes it’s the same ones, more than 19,000 foreign inmates, or 24.5% of the prison population: 3,068 EU nationals, 16,773 non-EU. We even have 686 inmates whose nationality is unknown...," specifies Gérald Darmanin in an interview with the Journal du Dimanche (JDD). According to him, "if these foreigners, or even a part of them, served their sentence in their country, we would no longer have an overcrowding problem. Without having to release those who should not be."

The French Minister of the Interior imagines the immensity of the task and even already some actions in this direction. He reveals that he has first set up a specific mission in charge of foreigners in prison within his department. "This is the first time that these issues have been addressed in the prison administration. It is indicative of a certain culture that was lacking in the Ministry of Justice," says Darmanin. He will explain: "This mission, which will coordinate the issue of foreign inmates, must first make it possible to generalize the identification of inmates upon their entry into prison, which is not the case today. It will also have to organize the daily departure of these inmates to their country of origin."

The minister intends to solve the problem of OQTFs, which are sometimes decisions without effect. "The removal of foreigners is always difficult," he admits. However, he says he notes that outside the European Union (EU), the main difficulty is not the agreement of the country of origin but the agreement of the inmate. "We sometimes have poorly negotiated conventions. Let’s take the example of Morocco: it is written there that the inmate must give his consent. Yet, Moroccan inmates never give theirs. Yet, some countries, like Belgium, have conventions with Morocco that allow them to do without the inmate’s opinion," he explains. Darmanin reveals that he has engaged in discussions with his counterpart and that he will make a similar request to all his counterparts. "This issue must be raised from minister to minister, without the inmate having a say," he adds.