On Wednesday May 11, a 37-year-old man, detained in the Nantes-Carquefou remand center, was found hanged in his cell.
Rescuers were unable to resuscitate him and he died shortly before 6 p.m.
Awaiting trial, he was described, according to
Ouest France
, as psychologically fragile.
The day before, a similar situation had occurred in the center of Gradignan (Gironde).
A man in his forties had taken his own life, using the sheets in his cell.
The establishment did not release details of the case.
Six days earlier, another detainee from Gradignan had already committed suicide.
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On April 2, the Force Ouvrière union at the Nantes prison center denounced a “
critical situation
” within the establishment, with 779 prisoners (men) for 420 theoretical places, an occupancy rate of 163%.
Many associations regularly denounce prison overcrowding and demand better living conditions in French prisons.
In 2021, 122 inmates killed themselves, according to the Ministry of Justice, compared to 111 in 2020 and 114 in 2019. The International Prison Observatory estimates that in France an inmate dies on average every two or three days, most of the time of his own doing.
In prisons, suicide rates are six times higher than in the “
general
” population, with equal demographic characteristics.