00:00French prison guards blockaded facilities across the country on Monday in protest of
00:05chronic overcrowding and staff shortages in a strike called by the UFAP-UNSA Union, representing
00:12prison and Ministry of Justice workers. The union is demanding emergency measures to fill
00:17an estimated 5,000 vacant guard posts.
00:20There is a constant violence in our prisons daily. For example, there are more than 1,000
00:27prisoners in the region who are sleeping on a mattress. There is a nervousness, a tension,
00:33conditions of living in detention that are indignes and angry, and so violence that requires
00:38nothing to express themselves.
00:39As of April 1st, French prisons held nearly 25,000 more inmates than the system's capacity,
00:45an occupancy rate of almost 140 percent. The Council of Europe condemned French prison conditions
00:51in January, warning that conditions in French jails had become degrading. The Ministry of
00:57Justice plans to open 3,000 additional places, half of them by 2027, in modular prisons for
01:03prisoners on short sentences or approaching release. A 2018 program to build 15,000 new
01:09places has yielded fewer than a third of that target.
01:12The Ministry of Justice
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