Le Figaro Nantes
Discomfort at the Nantes remand center.
Not content with having to guard the establishment's excess inmates, certain prison guards have also had to watch their own backs for several months.
Insults, remarks, racist jokes and other dubious historical references... Several agents of African, Arab or West Indian origin from the Nantes penitentiary center have been the subject of racist harassment for almost a year from at least one colleague.
A situation which would have caused several sick leave within the establishment, already hampered by a lack of staff.
According to the testimonies collected by our colleagues from
Ouest-France
, verbal violence occurs very freely in the privacy of the remand center.
“While my feet were hurting, he told me that I had to be used to my chains and my balls
,” reports for example a supervisor to the regional daily.
Another agent says he found rotten bananas in his shoes in the locker room.
A third mentions an internal email which referred to him as a
“cap gorilla”
, or even a
“silverback”
– another nickname for these great apes.
The parquet floor on the lookout
Since last summer, three complaints for moral harassment in the workplace have been filed by prison guards at the Nantes remand prison.
Asked by
Le Figaro
, the Nantes public prosecutor's office confirmed that it was following this sensitive matter "
with the utmost attention."
“We are very attentive to the situation in the penitentiary center, and to this end work in close collaboration with the management of the establishment,”
specifies the public prosecutor, Renaud Gaudeul.
One of the three open investigations was closed without further action.
“Despite a particularly in-depth analysis by our services, the offense could not be sufficiently characterized,”
notes Renaud Gaudeul, adding that he took care to explain the situation to the complainant.
The other two procedures are nevertheless still in progress.
According to information from
Ouest France
, the same individual targeted by these two complaints was suspended for four months before being transferred in December to another penitentiary center.