Heatwaves expose overcrowding and poor conditions in French prisons

Orleans, France. As temperatures exceeded 37 degrees Celsius, a prisoner at Orleans-Saran prison described coping with heat by placing wet towels around his cell window bars and remaining on his bed for much of the day.

Heatwave conditions

Reuters accompanied a July visit to Orleans-Saran, which opened in 2014, and spoke with more than 40 inmates, activists, prison directors, doctors and union representatives in France, Italy and Belgium.

Many described a crisis in prisons where summer heatwaves have highlighted overcrowding and ageing facilities.

Manu, 29, said he tried to move as little as possible during hot days. “You have to deal with it mentally,” he said.

Complaints over overcrowding

France’s chief prison inspector, Dominique Simonnot, said her independent public office received so many complaints from detainees during a severe June heatwave that it hired an additional employee.

“Imagine — we are suffocating in our flats, and they are three to four people in one nine-metre-square cell, in a building that is not adapted, not air conditioned, old and where the heat is overwhelming,” Simonnot said.

Limoges prison case

At Limoges prison, south of Orleans, a prisoner told his lawyer and mother that he had passed out from the heat, fallen and cut his head while getting up to use the toilet in the early hours of July 8.

A representative of the prison officers’ union gave Reuters a different account, saying the inmate, who asked not to be identified, had slipped while climbing to a window to get fresh air. Reuters did not speak to the prisoner and could not independently confirm either account.

The prisoner’s lawyer, Charly Salkazanov, said he had asked the prison to provide the man’s medical file for further details. “This kind of thing will happen repeatedly until the authorities wake up,” he said.

The Bordeaux regional prison service, which is responsible for Limoges prison, did not comment on the case. It said the prison had introduced heatwave measures, including increased access to showers and water and allowing inmates to buy fans and sun cream.