He “wanted to breathe”.
An inmate of the Nancy-Maxéville prison, who was on leave to participate in a performance at the Opéra de Lorraine, escaped Friday at the end of the show, we learned Monday from the city prosecutor's office.
"A procedure for escape has been opened" and the detainee is "actively sought", added the public prosecutor, François Pérain.
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The young man, born in 1999, had taken part in a participatory show created by the Opéra national de Lorraine, alongside other prisoners, inhabitants of the districts of Nancy and schoolchildren, accompanied by ten musicians from the opera symphony orchestra.
The sentence enforcement judge had granted him permission to leave.
According to the daily L'Est Républicain, the young prisoner read one of his poems on stage, then took part in the friendly drink organized after the performance.
The mayor of Nancy, Mathieu Klein, also attended.
And at the end of the show, the prisoner "left the theater", explaining that he "wanted to breathe", specified François Pérain.
He ran away and did not return to prison.
He had been imprisoned since February 2019 for "acts of theft and aggravated violence", according to the prosecution.
However, he was to be released soon, on September 1.