France: Wave of Attacks Against the Prison System

No less than nine attacks took place throughout France against prisons on the nights of Sunday 13 to Tuesday 15 April. This is unheard of since the great mutinies that took place in French prisons in the 1970s.

On the night of Sunday to Monday, seven vehicles were set on fire in the parking lot of the National School of Penitentiary Administration in Agen. This establishment trains future guards. The FO penitentiary union speaks of an “act of extreme gravity in the ENAP car park. One or more individuals arrived in a car, shouted before setting fire to seven vehicles, causing a fire.”

The following night, it was in Réau, in Seine-et-Marne, that the vehicle of a supervisor was set on fire and that three other cars were covered in flammable liquid. Then, seven other establishments were targeted. In front of the Nîmes prison, a car was burned. In front of the Toulon prison, heavy weapons fire targeted the door of the establishment, and fifteen impacts were noted. In Villepinte, in Seine-Saint-Denis, cars were also set on fire in front of the prison, as well as in front of Nanterre, in the Hauts-de-Seine.

In Aix-en-Provence, two vehicles caught fire and the gate of the Regional Intervention and Security Teams (ERIS), a particularly violent police unit specialising in prison interventions – was targeted. In Marseille, guards’ cars were tagged and another set on fire near the premises of the judicial protection of young people. The initials DDPF appeared on the bodywork, for “Rights of French prisoners”, a mysterious acronym. Finally, in Valence, two cars of guards also burned up in front of the prison.

These actions targeting prisons are coordinated, numerous and visibly organized. “Is this a provocation by drug bandits in the face of Gérald Darmanin’s prison policy? The act of members of the ultra-left? Nothing has been claimed at this stage,” wonders the newspaper Le Parisien. The investigators say they have “identified a Telegram channel” entitled “Rights of French prisoners” which is “suspected of being linked to ultra-left groups”. Info or fake news?

In any case, the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office has taken hold of an investigation for “terrorist criminal association with a view to the preparation of one or more crimes of attack on the person and degradation or deterioration of the property of others in an organized gang and attempted murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise”. Highly invasive means of surveillance and investigation are therefore deployed.

The situation in French prisons is terrible. In February 2025, the number of prisoners broke a record, reaching the figure of 81,599. The threshold of 80,000 prisoners was crossed for the first time in November 2024, and it is only increasing. 21,631 people locked up are only defendants, i.e. people awaiting trial and considered innocent in the eyes of the courts.

There are currently 62,363 “operational places” in prisons. The calculation is quickly made: 130.8% occupancy rate. This rate even climbs to 200% in some establishments, where nearly 4,500 people find themselves sleeping on the floor. This prison overcrowding places France in third place among the worst pupils in Europe, just after Cyprus and Romania.

Every year, several dozen prisoners commit suicide behind bars – 149 in 2023. The suicide rate is 6 times higher among people locked up than outside. At the end of January 2025, the Minister of Justice Gérald Darmanin announced the creation of a “super prison” for “super delinquents”, where the “100 biggest drug traffickers” would be kept. More and more means to monitor and punish rather than find solutions to the root of the problems.

Could the fires of the last few days be a backlash?

More figures on the prison here.

Source: https://contre-attaque.net/2025/04/15/attaques-en-serie-contre-le-monde-carceral/

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