Walls covered in mold on which water runs, leaking roofs, more than forty cells condemned due to their unsanitary conditions, a collapsed shower ceiling... The state of the Bonne-Nouvelle remand center in Rouen ( Seine-Maritime), which houses around 600 detainees, continues to fuel the local news.
Last week, as revealed by the local investigative media Le Poulpe, around fifty inmates had to be urgently transferred to other prisons (in Beauvais, Caen, Val-de-Reuil, etc.) following a security audit which pointed out “weaknesses in the gables” of several buildings.
A danger which “would not be imminent” according to the administration, but which still required this express evacuation and the closure of various reception and meeting rooms.
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A few days earlier, lawyer Julia Massardier spoke of this risk that she feared for her clients incarcerated in Rouen: “For them, it would be a disaster to be transferred elsewhere.
Here, there are only short sentences or people awaiting trial in detention.
Their family ties are here, as are their chances of reintegration.
This forced removal would be a catastrophe for them.”
With her colleague, Me Sanson, the lawyer filed a series of appeals before the administrative court for an expert to be appointed in order to draw up an exhaustive report on the state of the prison, the remaining cells of which are saturated "with three inmates who have to live together in spaces of 9 m2 without being able to stand at the same time.”
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The lawyer assures that the tension inside is palpable.
“I have been at the Rouen bar for ten years and I have noticed the dilapidation of the place for ten years.
But here, a milestone has been reached and there is an urgent need to act.
» However, this is not the first time that the fate of this establishment, renowned as a model when it opened in 1860, has been mentioned over the years.
At the beginning of 2010, the debate raged over the choice of the site which should accommodate a new remand center in the Rouen metropolitan area.
But, due to lack of consensus, the construction project was put back in the Ministry of Justice's boxes without a major renovation plan being considered.
" There is no more time to lose "
Requested by a letter from the prison inter-union, the socialist deputy for Seine-Maritime, Gérard Leseul, was also able to see the extent of the damage last December.
“As I entered inside, I had the impression of entering a black and white film from the 1950s,” recalls the elected official who immediately took up his pen (in the company of Senator Didier Marie and the mayor of Rouen, Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol) to ask the Minister of Justice, Éric Dupond-Moretti, what he intended to do to remedy these problems which “result in stress and insecurity for the entire staff and inmates.
Senator LR Agnès Canayer also asked an oral question at the beginning of February to inquire about the solutions envisaged by the former lawyer.
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For the moment, no precise answer.
Requested, unions and management obviously no longer wish to communicate on the issue.
Expected in a few weeks, an expert report should take stock of the situation and present the different hypotheses considered for the future.
Moving or renovating?
For now, nothing seems settled.
For many, including Gérard Leseul, the centrality of Bonne-Nouvelle remains an asset.
Especially since, according to him, “finding a new site that is unanimously accepted seems very illusory to me”.
Can we then consider a phased renovation of the different buildings?
“In my opinion, this would be the least bad solution,” the MP ventures.
“But in any case, there is no more time to lose.
»