A man locked up in the administrative detention center (CRA) of Vincennes for deportation was found dead in his room Friday, AFP learned from concordant sources. An investigation into the causes of death has been opened, the Paris prosecutor's office said.
The deceased, born in 1984, "was discovered this morning by the man who shared his room, to whom he would have complained of chest pains in the night," according to this source. The investigations were entrusted to the police station of the twelfth arrondissement of Paris, to which this CRA belongs. An autopsy must be performed.
Police violence?
Mathilde Bussière, head of service for Assfam (Association social service familial migrants) present in the center, told AFP that she had official confirmation of this death but had no information on the circumstances in which it had occurred. "This is a person that Assfam had not met since his detention because he did not come to our offices when we asked him to present our legal and administrative assistance," she said.
An activist collective, Down with the CRAs, suggested the death came after police violence the day before and called for a rally Friday night in front of the center. With a capacity of 235 places, the CRA of Vincennes is the largest center of metropolitan France, where foreigners in an irregular situation are detained in order to be expelled. In 2022, 2326 men had been held there, according to an associative report. In 2019, two men had already died in this center, a 19-year-old Tunisian and a Romanian in his twenties.
