Telephone jamming, millimeter wave masts, installation of scanners… Gérald Darmanin presents a “zero portable” plan for prisons

The Justice Minister also announced the recruitment of 1,000 additional prison officers.

No tolerance. The Minister of Justice, Gérald Darmanin, announced on Friday 21 November the launch of the “zero portable” plan, which aims to create six correctional institutions “completely waterproof” to cell phone. The experiment begins “starting today” with an initial envelope of around 30 million euros, he assured during a visit to Santé prison in Paris.

The six prisons selected were Arras, Dijon, Rennes, Toulouse-Seysses, Toulon and La Santé, in Paris. Of the six, four house arrests are in danger. In some of them, sending telephone calls or illegal drugs “everyday exercise”according to Gérald Darmanin. Security work will be carried out “in less than six to seven months”he explained.

This plan should also enable the eradication of drug trafficking, according to the Minister of Justice. “It is clear that some of the people responsible for solving the problem or killings in Marseille are in our prisons and, from our French prisons, can communicate”he explained.

“I will take places that are on the target list for drug smuggling,” reaction of the general secretary of the FO Justice union, Emmanuel Baudin, with Radio France. “We were not consulted on the choice of places of detention, which might have been good. Six places out of 200 places, representing 5,000 prisoners out of 85,000 or 90,000 places of detention.” The Justice Minister, for his part, wants to prioritize places where inmates can get phones or medicines more easily.

To ensure strictness, scanners will be installed to check detainee packages, as well as millimeter wave gantries, like those at airports, because according to Gérald Darmanin, “it’s more complicated to get on a plane than to go to jail”. Telephone interference system costs, “very effective”encrypted “between four and five million euros per company”he added. The closure of the footpath will be carried out in 2026 to prevent this “projection” phone in this prison.

This “security reset” is part of the continuity of reforms inspired by “Italian anti-mafia law” For “fighting recidivism”explained Gérald Darmanin. The minister also announced the recruitment of an additional 1,000 prison officers by 2026, saying that this is “strongest hiring of any administration”.