France: spectating life on the outside

My arrest was particularly difficult. The Banditry Repression Brigade (Brigade de répression du banditisme, BRB) was watching me day and night. On that day, they would not let it rest. They started tailing me at 2:00 p.m. I was not working at the time; I was on sick leave. At 4:30 p.m., I went to pick up my daughter from school. We were walking hand-in-hand, crossing the street at the pedestrian crossing, when a car nearly hit us. At first, I did not know what was going on. Then, a dozen plainclothes officers arrived, telling me that they were there to arrest me. My daughter was four years old. Immediately, she understood that something was wrong and clung to my leg like a koala bear. The officers handcuffed me. I wondered what would happen to my daughter. At that moment, a policewoman arrived and picked up my daughter. The police officers called my wife to tell her what was happening. My daughter did not say a word. She went mute. They let me say good-bye, but she never looked up. She did not cry. She was stoic, showing no emotion. I tried to hug her, but her arms just hung limp at her sides.

The arrest could have happened earlier, at 4:00 or 4:15, but the police officers were afraid I would flee. They preferred to arrest me when I was with my daughter. Later, I learned that the BRB typically arrests people in front of schools and their children.

This scene haunted me for a long time. The first time I was able to talk to my wife on the telephone, she told me that our little girl had been traumatised. She did not speak at all for a while. That just destroyed me.

My wife also told me that a few days after my arrest, the two of them went to the supermarket. There was a security guard in front of the entrance, like normal. When my daughter saw that he had a walkie-talkie, she dropped to the ground in a fit of hysteria. She was scared, did not want to go into the shop and kept pulling her mother toward the exit. At first, my wife took it the wrong way, not understanding. Then she made the connection with my arrest.

My first time in the visiting room was with my wife and my daughter. It was hard. When they arrived, my daughter needed to use the toilet. I asked the guard if my daughter could go to the bathroom. He told me it was not possible and slammed the door. My daughter ended up wetting herself, she was so afraid. It is a horrible memory. I remember wondering what good it was to have them come visit, if they were going to have to go through that every time.

But as the months passed, my daughter relaxed and started playing with me. She came with my mother and my sister, who were very good about explaining things to her. My daughter thought I was there to repair the pipes in the prison, which were filthy. Her mother told her, “Papa is here to fix all the pipes. He’ll come home when they are all repaired.” Every time she came, she checked out the pipes. Strangely enough, I hoped the pipes would be in bad shape. I was afraid she would say, “Papa, the pipes are fixed. You can come home now.”

Now, I think she understands. Sometimes she will say, “Papa, remember when you weren’t here?” because nobody had ever taught her the word “prison.” Not long ago, one of my close friends was sent to prison. His wife did not filter anything; she used the word “prison” openly with her children. My daughter told me, “Uncle isn’t here anymore either.” For her, “not here anymore” means prison.

For me, unlike for other prisoners, visits never really boosted my morale. It was hard on me to see my relatives crammed into a room the size of a toilet stall. In the moment, it did me good to see them, to hold them in my arms. But it also meant that they saw the disgusting place where I was living, with the stench of dead rats and damp, the filth, the old chewing gum stuck everywhere. I could see the sadness in their eyes.

After each session in the visiting room, all prisoners are systematically searched. One day, when I went back up after the search like normal, there were lots of people. A very nice guard told me, “Listen, you can go back down to the visiting room for another five minutes to take advantage of the time while you wait.” When I got there, my wife and daughter were crying. To avoid letting them know, I pretended not to see them for a few seconds.

From that day on, I preferred to talk to them by telephone or by video call. I don’t know if it was better for them, but it hurt me too much to see them so sad after I’d left the visiting room.

Prison itself was not difficult, at least not for me. It was kind of similar to life in the suburbs. People talking all the time, all kinds of noise, people carrying on in the same way. The only thing that really changed was the feeling of being controlled by the prison routine. What was really hard, though, was knowing that my family was suffering on the outside, hearing my mother tell me on the telephone that she wanted me to come home. I had to learn to detach myself from those closest to me and forget them so they would only exist for me during phone calls.

Prison is a time of powerlessness. I often asked myself questions. I wondered what would happen if my mother or my father fell ill or if a family member died. I looked into it, and I realised just how pathetic I would feel if I had to experience a wake and a burial from my cell.

That’s when I understood that no matter the cost, nothing was worth more than freedom. The game was not worth the candle. Nothing could make up for the absence, the damage and the missed birthdays and other occasions.

I felt useless, like a spectator watching what was going on outside. The only thing I could do was make phone calls. I felt ridiculous.

Shortly after my arrival in prison, my wife told me that she was pregnant again. She made the announcement to me on the phone: “Hi, I have great news!” I thought that she was calling to tell me that I was going to be released. For me, that was the only good news that I could imagine. When she told me she was pregnant, I did not take it as good news at all. Immediately, I made a few quick calculations, I figured in potential early release or reductions in my sentence. It would be impossible for me to be out for the baby’s birth. But I still hoped. Obviously, that was not enough, and I was still in prison when the baby was born. My wife’s water broke, and I was not there. Once again I told myself that the game was not worth the candle.

I saw my baby, my newborn daughter, for the first time when I got out of prison. She was six months old. My older daughter had not realised that I was home. I had gone in to wake her up, but she had fallen right back asleep. But then, in the middle of the night, when I was in bed, she came in shouting with joy, “Papa! You’re home!” That was the moment when the news sank in for her.

And then life started again. I came out with an electronic tag, something I endured with no problem. For me, it was all positive: eating where I wanted to eat, seeing the daylight, opening my door myself and being allowed a phone. All that mattered to me was going to work to support my family and, most of all, spending time with them. Rediscovering all that made me realise that life is beautiful.