After the damning findings, justice responded. A summary judge on Saturday ordered the justice minister to stop “as soon as possible” belonging “unethical behavior” committed by agents against prisoners at the Conde-sur-Sarthe penitentiary center (Orne).
In this decision of the administrative court of Caen, which AFP was able to see, the judge mentions “offensive, racist and supremacist remarks” Violence and humiliation were reported in May during an unannounced visit by the Comptroller General of Prisons (CGLPL) to the prison’s QLCO unit.
The International Prison Observatory (OIP) brought this extraordinary procedure to court following the publication in early July of a particularly damning CGLPL report on the actions of prison staff at Condé-sur-Sarthe. Many attorneys have joined this temporary release on behalf of their clients in custody.
“We are witnessing the denial of the most basic rights of detained people”– Mathieu Quenquis, OIP lawyer, criticized me on Friday during the hearing. For me, Vincent Brengart, lawyer for one of the detained applicants, the judge’s decision is “an unequivocal admission of wrongdoing and acknowledgment of the work carried out by CGLPL.” “The state must now take immediate, concrete and mandatory measures to put an end to this illegal practice,” he told AFP.
The safety of the detainees is in question
The director of the Condé-sur-Sarthe penitentiary center (312 staff per 100 prisoners) confirmed at the hearing that there was no “No unethical behavior” at his establishment.
The summary judge concluded that “A prison administration that limits itself to reminding that it has drawn up instructions and carried out appropriate training cannot be regarded as ensuring the safety and integrity of detainees.” or QLCO.
“Actions Mentioned” in the report “ allow us to establish particularly serious attacks on the rights of detained persons and their inviolability,” the judge insists. He quotes “humiliating or brutal strip searches, balancing on one leg, arms outstretched in front of you, with no way to get support” etc. “practices of suffocation that may be accompanied by grasping of the genitals.”
The decision also mentions “punishments consisting of deprivation of personal effects and hygiene items, and the practice of placing foodstuffs in a raised basket and requiring the prisoner to grab them without touching the basket, on pain of deprivation of food.”
In response to the report, Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin announced an internal control mission to Condé-sur-Sarthe. “from summer 2026.”
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