An inmate was discovered dead in his cell at La Santé prison in Paris on Saturday, the Paris prosecutor's office and a police source said this Sunday, specifying that the man was found hanged.
Born in 1990, he had been in pre-trial detention since January 10, according to the prosecution, as part of an immediate appearance referral for aggravated violence and death threats.
The hearing was scheduled to take place on February 14.
The emergency services intervened around 1:00 p.m. and were unable to resuscitate him, specifies the police source, according to which the man had been placed in an individual cell after having made suicidal remarks.
He was incarcerated for drug-related weapons violence, according to this source.
An investigation has been opened and will determine the causes of death but also the conditions of his incarceration, indicates the prosecution.
More than a hundred suicides in 2022
The Santé penitentiary center in Paris accommodated 1,077 inmates for 713 places as of December 1, representing an occupancy rate of 151.1%.
Prison overcrowding is breaking records in France, with, as of November 1, 2023, more than 75,000 people incarcerated for around 61,000 places available, according to data from the Ministry of Justice.
Faced with chronic prison overcrowding - which has earned France a condemnation from the European Court of Human Rights - the government is counting on the construction of 15,000 new prison places by 2027.
Also read: Bois d'Arcy, Fleury, Nanterre... diving into the overcrowded prisons of Île-de-France
According to the International Prison Observatory (OIP) association, prisoners commit suicide six times more than the general population.
A report from the Directorate of Prison Administration (DAP) dated 2019 highlighted that these suicides were more numerous in remand centers or remand center areas, which receive prisoners awaiting their trial and those sentenced to short sentences.
A total of 125 prisoners committed suicide in French prisons in 2022.