The “Kohlanness” affair highlights “the difficult working conditions for prison staff and the conditions of detention which are still very degraded”, according to Rachida Dati. This sporting event organized at the end of July at the Fresnes penitentiary center caused an outcry on social networks, before creating a political controversy. The former Keeper of the Seals and LR mayor of the 7th arrondissement of Paris, was the guest of Europe 1 on Wednesday, she judges that the current Minister of Justice Éric Dupond-Moretti is “very silent on the spiral of delinquency and violence in France”.
A misplaced question
According to her, “the only time he speaks, he takes it abruptly to comment on a situation that happened in prison”, she continues, in reference to “Kohlanness”. Éric Dupond-Moretti “strongly attacked and implicated the prison director”.
However, the former Keeper of the Seals affirms, “we know what is happening in prison establishments”, and these projects are not spontaneous: “These are projects presented, magistrates can validate them, and it goes back in the minister’s office. It’s wrong to say that it can’t go up.”
“The prevention of recidivism is the safety of citizens”
Rachida Dati insists: “It was clumsy to broadcast images without any pedagogy”, and the minister should have done so. According to her, when one “is Keeper of the Seals, one does not say: ‘I am not aware, it is not my fault, [c’est] this wicked prison warden with his wicked prisoners.’ This is not how it happens, because the prevention of recidivism is the safety of citizens”, she assures.
And to cite the improvements that she herself put in place when she was Minister of Justice. “I built prisons with workshops so that prisoners could work. Today, not all prisoners can work, because there are no suitable workshops. And when they work, at least , they compensate the victims”, she specifies at the microphone of Sonia Mabrouk. “The other aspect is having family living units.” Having “dignified visiting rooms to receive your family, it promotes reintegration, it prevents recidivism.”
Finally, Rachida Dati wishes to confirm this: “Those on whom we work on reintegration projects, often it is the short sentences, it is not Salah Abdeslam or Antonio Ferrara who are on the kartings.”