# How bad are French prisons
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-are-french-prisons/590586
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [July 28, 2011, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-are-french-prisons/590586 "2011-07-28T04:13:23Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2011, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-are-french-prisons/590586/1 "2011-07-28T04:13:23Z")
In this thread
> **[Is Norway's "luxury" super-max prison really that comfortable?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=617907)**
>
> I’ve seen articles for a couple of years now about Norway’s Halden Prison - the place looks remarkably cushy, with comfortable cells, flat-screen TVs, good gym facilities, and so on. Most recently, Foreign Policy ran a slideshow on the place, on...
Someone mentions that French prisons are pretty miserable. I have heard that statement before from other sources (I can’t remember them, just statements I’ve read over the years).
Over in this article, Vladimir Putin used abuses in French prisons as a way to distract from Russian human rights abuses, claiming nations like France should look at themselves rather than criticizing Russia.
> **[French Prisons Are Becoming An Embarrassment](https://www.newsweek.com/french-prisons-are-becoming-embarrassment-87695)**
>
> French prisons are becoming an embarrassment.
France seems like a pretty egalitarian, human rights friendly country. Why would their prisons be miserable? Not even US prisons seem to have these problems (at least my impression is reforms over the last few decades tried to put a stop to these kinds of things like unaccountable guard violence, widespread rape, guard culpability in criminality, etc).
> **[Doctor's book shames French prisons](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1127522/)**
The book, Médecin-chef à la Prison de la Santé, was written by Dr Véronique Vasseur, who has worked in the Santé prison for seven years, the last six as head physician.
She found the cells filthy and infested with rats and mice and the mattresses so teeming with lice and other insects that inmates collected them in jars to protest.
Drug dealing was rampant, with some guards also being involved. Rape was frequent, as were self mutilations, suicides, and attempted suicides.
Guards beat up prisoners, and seasoned inmates turned weaker ones into slaves, who did not dare complain for fear of reprisals.
Food was often spoiled and gastroenteritis epidemics were frequent. Dr Vasseur even identified a disease known only in wartime—bread scabies, caused by mouldy bread.
The book has caused an uproar and triggered investigations by the press. Some of France’s notorious former prisoners, including former ministers and top business executives, have been interviewed and have signed a petition deploring prison conditions.
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### Author:  [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2011, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-are-french-prisons/590586/2 "2011-07-28T04:32:37Z")
Is there a question here? Are you wondering if your sources are lying?
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### Author:  [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2011, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-are-french-prisons/590586/3 "2011-07-28T04:34:44Z")
> [@Keeve](#):
>
> Are you wondering if your sources are lying?
I have to say, though, finding out if your sources are lying is a great use of this forum, especially for something as politicized as prison policy.
---
### Author:  [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2011, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-are-french-prisons/590586/4 "2011-07-28T05:22:57Z")
Sorry not GQ, but the French film “A Prophet” portrays one. It’s still in my Netflix queue so I haven’t seen it, and I don’t know how accurate it is, but it has great reviews if you care.
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### Author:  [@brittekland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brittekland)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2011, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-are-french-prisons/590586/5 "2011-07-28T05:54:33Z")
Probably films such as (one of my favorite) “Papillon” (set in a French penal colony in French Guiana, though it no longer exists) have influenced some of the notion. Guillotines, crocs, leprosy.
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### Author:  [@BowlOfDucks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BowlOfDucks)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2011, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-are-french-prisons/590586/6 "2011-07-28T06:41:03Z")
I found [this linky](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/22/french-prisons-treiber-detainee-death) that seems to suggest French prisons are pretty bad places.
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### Author:  [@eddiec3434](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eddiec3434)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2011, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-are-french-prisons/590586/7 "2011-07-28T06:47:30Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#):
>
> In this thread
>
> [Is Norway's "luxury" super-max prison really that comfortable? - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=617907)
>
> Someone mentions that French prisons are pretty miserable. I have heard that statement before from other sources (I can’t remember them, just statements I’ve read over the years).
>
> Over in this article, Vladimir Putin used abuses in French prisons as a way to distract from Russian human rights abuses, claiming nations like France should look at themselves rather than criticizing Russia.
>
> [French Prisons Are Becoming An Embarrassment - Newsweek](http://www.newsweek.com/2008/08/01/incarceration-nation.html)
>
> France seems like a pretty egalitarian, human rights friendly country. Why would their prisons be miserable? Not even US prisons seem to have these problems (at least my impression is reforms over the last few decades tried to put a stop to these kinds of things like unaccountable guard violence, widespread rape, guard culpability in criminality, etc).
>
> [Doctor's book shames French prisons - PMC](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1127522/)
>
> The book, Médecin-chef à la Prison de la Santé, was written by Dr Véronique Vasseur, who has worked in the Santé prison for seven years, the last six as head physician.
>
> She found the cells filthy and infested with rats and mice and the mattresses so teeming with lice and other insects that inmates collected them in jars to protest.
>
> Drug dealing was rampant, with some guards also being involved. Rape was frequent, as were self mutilations, suicides, and attempted suicides.
>
> Guards beat up prisoners, and seasoned inmates turned weaker ones into slaves, who did not dare complain for fear of reprisals.
>
> Food was often spoiled and gastroenteritis epidemics were frequent. Dr Vasseur even identified a disease known only in wartime—bread scabies, caused by mouldy bread.
>
> The book has caused an uproar and triggered investigations by the press. Some of France’s notorious former prisoners, including former ministers and top business executives, have been interviewed and have signed a petition deploring prison conditions.
Chino State Prison here in California might not have moldy bread, but I assured you the prisoners are known gangsters from from L.A, Oakland, Orange and San Diego county. If you can survive a California prison, you will survive anything. You’re in gangland over here. You would be surprised what goes on here in sunny California. The feds are always one step away from taking over the Cal. Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitations health care system. They’re dying of very preventable diseases.
Here the races have to segregate to maintain the peace. One stands a very good chance of getting “shanked” for walking through another race’s area. If you’re asked to “put in work” (traffic drugs, kill or mame someone, etc) and you don’t comply, you’re getting out in a body bag. Now you can “lock it up”, (request protective custody) but then your transfered to a yard with sex offenders and charlie manson types.
We got serious problems here in CA and the USA too. You just don’t hear about it somehow.
---
### Author:  [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2011, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-are-french-prisons/590586/8 "2011-07-28T11:31:11Z")
Just thought I’d mention- I’m the one Wesley Clark is quoting, and my only source is con man Frank Abagnale (who inspired the film “Catch Me If You Can”).
Again, Abagnale is a con artist, so anything he says is to be taken with a grain of salt. But HIS opinion was that, of the prisons he did time in, the Swedish prison was a Holiday Inn (his words), the French prison was sheer HEll, and the American federal prison was in between.
Mind you, he doesn’t bear France any ill will. He said the French system made no pretense at rehabilitation and existed to punish wrongdoers so severely they’d NEVER dare going back again. And as much as he hated it, Abagnale seemed to respect that approach.
Bear in mind, of course, that Abagnale did time in the mid-Sixties, and a LOT could have changed in France since then.
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### Author:  [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2011, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-are-french-prisons/590586/9 "2011-07-28T14:19:00Z")
> [@astorian](#):
>
> Just thought I’d mention- I’m the one Wesley Clark is quoting, and my only source is con man Frank Abagnale (who inspired the film “Catch Me If You Can”).
>
> Again, Abagnale is a con artist, so anything he says is to be taken with a grain of salt. But HIS opinion was that, of the prisons he did time in, the Swedish prison was a Holiday Inn (his words), the French prison was sheer HEll, and the American federal prison was in between.
>
> Mind you, he doesn’t bear France any ill will. He said the French system made no pretense at rehabilitation and existed to punish wrongdoers so severely they’d NEVER dare going back again. And as much as he hated it, Abagnale seemed to respect that approach.
>
> Bear in mind, of course, that Abagnale did time in the mid-Sixties, and a LOT could have changed in France since then.
“Catch Me If You Can” is what I came in here to mention. In the book, he describes dungeon-like conditions in the French prison, being locked up 24/7 in a tiny cell with no light or human interaction. The guy did make his living as a conman, though, so you have to take what he says with a grain of a salt.
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### Author:  [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2011, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-are-french-prisons/590586/10 "2011-07-29T14:05:25Z")
[Here’s](http://www.care2.com/news/member/597720583/963707) the Council of Europe’s human rights commission criticizing French prisons in 2008. It found “overcrowding, lack of privacy, dilapidated facilities and substandard hygiene,” and it noted a high suicide rate.
An [article](http://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/28/world/expose-of-brutal-prison-jolts-france-s-self-image.html) about the Vasseur book noted above mentioned that half of the inmates in the system have not been convicted; i.e., they’re on pretrial detention. Also, apparently there is no systematic separation of pretrial detainees from convicts (at least as of 2000; this may have changed).
A [writer](http://mondediplo.com/2005/07/14prison) in Le Monde Diplomatique blames “the simplistic ideas of United States conservatives” for France’s prison conditions.
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### Author:  [@code\_grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/code_grey)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2011, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-are-french-prisons/590586/11 "2011-07-29T19:18:42Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#):
>
> A [writer](http://mondediplo.com/2005/07/14prison) in Le Monde Diplomatique blames “the simplistic ideas of United States conservatives” for France’s prison conditions.
LOL. This reminds me the well-known poem by Guberman, approximately translated as follows:
All philosophies are in agreement
That there is just no escaping from Jews.
Only scientists still haven’t figured out
How exactly they cause all the earthquakes.
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### Author:  [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2011, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-are-french-prisons/590586/12 "2011-07-29T19:51:24Z")
I can you you from first-hand experience that French prisons aren’t half as bad as Turkish prisons.