The French government on Tuesday announced measures to tackle the shocking rate of suicides in prisons, including giving vulnerable prisoners tearable bedding and single-use paper pajamas to stop them hanging themselves in their cells.
France’s overcrowded and often fetid jails have been damned by campaign groups. French President Nicolas Sarkozy acknowledged this year that prisons were the nation’s “shame.”
Reports by the UN Human Rights Committee and the Council of Europe have accused French jails of being dirty, degrading and inhumane. Overcrowding is rife and there are more than 62,000 inmates crammed into a prison system designed to house 51,000. The government yesterday said 81 prisoners had killed themselves in jail this year. But non-government organizations say the figure is higher. Suicides in prison have largely been men, with around one in five aged under 25, but also including teenagers. More than half are on remand, often it is their first time in prison.
Suicide rates in French prisons far exceed figures in countries such as Germany and the UK and figures for this year could be the worst in a decade. Prison wardens have staged protests over prison conditions and the suicide problem, with wardens’ unions warning the prison environment is so bad that there have also been suicides among prison officers.
French Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie announced on Tuesday special “protection kits” for vulnerable inmates, including tearable sheets and blankets as well as flame-proof mattresses. Touring a prison in Orleans to launch the measures, she said there would also be more training and better prisoner support. She also said the government would be more “transparent” about the scale of the problem. It has previously been accused of sweeping it under the carpet.
The night before Alliot-Marie’s announcement, a 37-year-old inmate in Marseille who had been under observation over family problems was found hanged in his cell.
The justice minister’s new suicide prevention measures take into account a series of recommendations by the psychiatrist Louis Albrand earlier this year. Albrand had boycotted the handing over of his report, accusing the government of failing to take the issue seriously and burying the problem. On Tuesday he called for “a real revolution in French prisons,” saying the institutions must be “humanized.”
A ship that appears to be taking on the identity of a scrapped gas carrier exited the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, showing how strategies to get through the waterway are evolving as the Middle East war progresses. The vessel identifying as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Jamal left the Strait on Friday morning, ship-tracking data show. However, the same tanker was also recorded as having beached at an Indian demolition yard in October last year, where it is being broken up, according to market participants and port agent’s reports. The ship claiming to be Jamal is likely a zombie vessel that
Japan is to downgrade its description of ties with China from “one of its most important” in an annual diplomatic report, according to a draft reviewed by Reuters, as relations with Beijing worsen. This year’s Diplomatic Bluebook, which Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government is expected to approve next month, would instead describe China as an important neighbor and the relationship as “strategic” and “mutually beneficial.” The draft cites a series of confrontations with Beijing over the past year, including export controls on rare earths, radar lock-ons targeting Japanese military aircraft and increased pressure around Taiwan. The shift in tone underscores a deterioration
LAW CONSTRAINTS: The US has been pressing allies to send warships to open the Strait, but Tokyo’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution Japan could consider deploying its military for minesweeping in the Strait of Hormuz if a ceasefire is reached in the war on Iran, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi said yesterday. “If there were to be a complete ceasefire, hypothetically speaking, then things like minesweeping could come up,” Motegi said. “This is purely hypothetical, but if a ceasefire were established and naval mines were creating an obstacle, then I think that would be something to consider.” Japan’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution, but 2015 security legislation allows Tokyo to use its Self-Defense Forces overseas if an attack,
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) yesterday faced a regional election battle in Rhineland-Palatinate, now held by the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). Merz’s CDU has enjoyed a narrow poll lead over the SPD — their coalition partners at the national level — who have ruled the mid-sized state for 35 years. Polling third is the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which spells a greater threat to the two centrist parties in several state elections in September in the country’s ex-communist east. The picturesque state of Rhineland-Palatinate, bordering France, Belgium and Luxembourg and with a population of about 4 million,
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