The penitentiary administration is attached to the Ministry of Justice. The penitentiary administration is responsible for the management, the surveillance, the registry (follow-up of imprisonment), probation and reintegration. The private sector is responsible, in certain facilities, for the day-to-day operations: food services, accommodations, training, work, maintenance. For the past several years it has also been in charge of family visits.
Health care is the responsibility of public hospitals (Ministry of Health) since 1994. There are two types of health services available: basic health care and psychiatric care. Access to medical units varies from one prison to another. General medical care is mostly satisfactory despite some problems with the facilities (conflicting scheduling, disciplinary procedures that are underway, etc.). Specialised treatment, namely eye and dental care and treatment for chronic disorders, is seriously lacking, as there are not enough medical specialists. Requests for appointments must be made in writing and can take several months to come through. The most frequently cited problems concern the safeguarding of patient confidentiality and the lack of resources in the medical units.

The general overcrowding was pointed out as a major challenge for the control the virus in prisons. When the crisis started, more than 1,600 prisoners were sleeping on mattresses placed on the floor in overcrowded cells. The premises, in poor conditions, did not always provide adequate ventilation.
“In reality, each prison is a potential epidemiological cluster in the making. For years, the situation of incarcerated persons have strongly deteriorated and the current crisis is throwing a harsh light on an already sick system“.
At the end of March 2020, the first masks were made available to prison officers. The use of masks was generally respected within the health units. A more lenient approach was observed in the other spaces. The practice varied depending on the facility.
During the second wave of the pandemic, new mask-related measures were implemented. For instance, The Administrative Court of Toulouse ordered the administration of Toulouse-Seysses prison “to organise a testing campaign (…) and to make masks available to prisoners in certain closed and shared premises”. In October 2020, the use of masks became mandatory in “high alert” areas for prisoners and staff.

Arriving prisoners were isolated and placed in quarantine for 15 days. Hydro-alcoholic gel was banned in all facilities, due to the no-alcoholic beverage policy. A reduced access to healthcare for medical conditions other than COVID-19 was reported, except in major prisons.

On 3rd April 2020, prisoners’ access to water at La Santé prison was cut for several hours, preventing them from washing their hands. The incident was caused by a pipe leak and was the second water cut reported in the previous three months. In other facilities, prisoners claimed that they did not have access to soap.
Many organisations described the conditions of detention as worrying, calling for early releases and a strong decongestion. On 25 May 2020, a member of the French Section of the International Prison Observatory (French OIP) said that certain prisoners had not set foot outside of their cells since the beginning of lockdown by fear of getting infected. They had been staying 24/7 inside their cells, without any visits. The French OIP regretted the administration’s lack of consideration for prisoners.

At the end of the first wave of the pandemic in May 2020, the spread of the disease in prisons seemed to have been controlled. The number of positive cases was of 292 amongst staff (including one death) and 118 amongst prisoners (including one death).

A set of decisions, issued by the Ministry of Justice, took effect on 23 March 2020. Amongst the decisions, the decongestion of remand centres was of the utmost priority. The Ministry of Justice asked the courts to defer the enforcement of short prison sentences. The measure could be applied to prisoners who had demonstrated a good behaviour. About 30 entries per day in prison were recorded, “against more than 200 usually”, according to its press release. Adjustments such as electronic surveillance were not included, as technicians were not working during the national lockdown.
On 27 May 2020, the Ministry of Justice advised judges on prison population regulation. The document was co-signed by the Directorate for Criminal Matters and Pardons and the Directorate for Prison Administration. It urged prosecutors to reconsider less than one-month sentences that had not yet been served and to suspend sentences that could be postponed. Sentences inferior or equal to six months of imprisonment were to be reconsidered. Judges could also choose to shorten elderly prisoners’ sentences coming to an end. Community service, of 105 hours on average, could be reduced by 35 hours. A judge commented the orientations to be the laxest ever communicated by the Ministry of Justice.
Between March and May 2020, the prison population decreased by 13,500 people, reaching the total number of 60,600. This decrease was the result of limited judicial activities (trials and hearings postponed), a declining delinquency during the lockdown and the implementation of early release measures.
On 29 April, the average prison density fell below 100%. However, the overcrowding in some facilities were still over 140%, including in the Meaux and Villepinte prisons. This unequal decrease resulted from various regional contexts and local dynamics between the judges responsible for the execution of sentences and the judicial authorities.

On 17 March 2020, all group activities were suspended, except for daily exercise and sports when practiced outdoors. Internal movements were limited and external actors stopped their actions. Most work, training, socio-cultural and education activities were suspended. Prisoners described this as a “double-lockdown”. Exceptions were granted, in particular in the juvenile facilities, in which the Youth Judicial Protection Services (PJJ) intervene.
Several organisations tried to find alternatives to this situation. For instance, volunteer groups started replacing their usual visits with letters.
On 26 March 2020, sewing workshops resumed. Prisoners in 140 prisons made cloth masks. About 80% of the 5,000 pieces produced each day were sent to the Paris hospitals (AP-HP) staff. The other 20% were to be used by prison officers. Prisoners participating in these workshops were paid 6 euros per hour.
In May 2020, as the national lockdown came to an end, prison restrictions were very gradually lifted. At the Rennes-Vezin prison, sociocultural and sports activities, considered to be “non-essential”, were not set to resume before 2 June.

On 18 March 2020, family visits were suspended. Lawyer’s meetings were maintained. In order to compensate for this increased isolation, the Ministry of Justice issued a set of decisions regarding compensatory measures to take effect 23 March. The decisions included the allocation of a credit of 40 euros to each prisoner’s telephone account. This credit could be used from telephone booths (in all prisons) or from the telephones placed inside cells (64 prisons are equipped). Television was made accessible free of charge, and the most destitute prisoners’ financial aid was increased by 40 euros per month. The French NPM highlighted, in a report, the fact that such compensatory measures were neither effective nor sufficient: in one prison, there was a telephone booth that barely functioned and was shared between 80 prisoners. The length of calls was limited.
On 11 May 2020, visits were resumed and first carried out according to strict sanitary measures. Prisoners were allowed only one visit per week with a maximum duration of one hour. Visitors were not authorised to bring in laundry. All physical contacts were prohibited. However, all sanitary measures were not equally implemented. In Sequedin prison, for instance, visiting cubicles were not equipped with plexiglass screens. Where plexiglass screens were places, visitors described the atmosphere as highly unsatisfactory: masks, distancing, lack of human contact and loud background noise hindered the interactions. Some said they even preferred not to return.
Certain types of visits were resumed gradually. Legal and employment advice sessions with external actors were still prohibited. On 22 July 2020, individual meeting with chaplains and collective religious celebrations resumed at Meaux-Chauconin prison.
Inspection visits are still limited: the French NPM has not resumed its on-site visits since the beginning of the pandemic. Members of the Parliament (MP) are usually allowed to conduct ad hoc inspection visits. In April 2020, however, a MP’s request to visit a prison near Lille got refused. He contested this decision in court, which overturned the ban.

The first movements of protest took place on 17 March 2020 and attested high tension levels. On 22 March 2020, prisoners of Uzerche prison refused to return to their cells. Some went up on the roof and burned mattresses. They protested against the suspension of visits. A union representative explained: “The family visits are often what links prison to the outside (…) It is human contact that counts for these prisoners (…) It is seeing their families, their wives and their children over the weekend that keeps them going“. About 200 cells were degraded after the incident.
The day after, about a hundred prisoners at the Rennes-Vezin facility addressed a public letter to prison and government authorities.

They claimed they were being put in “mortal danger” and called for the decongestion of all prisons. They asserted that the hygiene protocols were impossible to respect due to overcrowding.

On 24 March 2020, about thirty prisoners refused to return to their cells in the Tarascon prison. They demanded masks, hand sanitiser and to be released. On 27 March 2020, 44 protests – sometimes violent - had occurred in more than 40 different facilities. Remand prisons were the most impacted, since they were the places most affected by overcrowding and promiscuity. The movements have mainly been considered to be a reaction to the poor detention conditions, the lack of communication with the outside world, the feeling of danger and to be neglected, unclear instructions, and a drug shortage linked to the suspension of visits. The prison administration repressed these protests.
Protests mostly occurred during the first months of the pandemic.

On 19 March 2020, more than 1,000 people (researchers, public figures, magistrates, lawyers and NGOs) signed an opinion piece calling for the decongestion of prisons. On 29 March 2020, a petition for the protection of fundamental liberties (référé-liberté) was brought before the Council of State on behalf of the French OIP, the Association of Lawyers for the Defense of Prisoners’ Rights (A3D), the Magistrates Union and the Union of French Lawyers. The urged the Council of State’s litigation section (juge des référés) to reinforce measures to put a stop to the infringements on the basic rights of prisoners. On 31 March 2020, prisoners from the Nanterre prison lodged a complaint against the Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice for “endangering the lives of others.”

The Lyon Bar Association denounced derogatory measures that enabled judges to extend pre-trial detention. The president of the Criminal Lawyers Association denounced: “closed-door, judge-sitting-alone videoconferencing hearings of presumed innocent prisoners”. The Magistrates Union alerted to that “these provisions in force for many months are likely to have a contamination effect on common law”.

On 4 April 2020, several lawyers and prisoners urgently appealed to the Administrative Court of Martinique. They urged the prison administration to “reduce the number of prisoners held in Ducos prison to a figure allowing single-occupancy cells, take action to help maintain family ties, take sanitary and hygiene measures, and carry out screening tests.“ The Court recognised the “worrying situation of overcrowding”, but it stated that the prison administration had no power to change living conditions or make sentence adjustments. It ordered the provision of masks and gloves and requested that screening tests be carried out.
On 3rd June 2020, an open letter signed by 40 organisations and nearly 1,000 public figures was addressed to French President. They called on the President to initiate a policy for the decongestion of prisons.
On 2nd July 2020, the French NPM published a report making reference to the measures taken, welcoming the “efficient” prevention and the low number of infections. It recalled that: “the major risk of an epidemic developing in closed crowded spaces and within a population whose state of health often made them particularly vulnerable had been avoided”. The NPM stated that the “spectacular fall” in the number of prisoners showed that it was “possible for the overall occupancy rate of French prisons to return to their actual capacity, or even below”.