Le Mesnil-Amelot (France) (AFP)

Senator EELV Esther Benbassa denounced the conditions of detention of foreigners during a surprise visit on Tuesday at Mesnil-Amelot (Seine-et-Marne), in the largest administrative detention center (CRA) in France, affected by a major fire in January.

"Hello! I am a senator and I am coming to visit the center", announced Ms. Benbassa over the intercom, before entering the premises located only a few hundred meters from the runways at Roissy airport.

"These detention centers should not exist, there are bars everywhere", criticized the senator from Paris.

"These are not people who have committed an offense or a crime, often they do not know why they are there", continued the elected, who spoke with several of the foreigners locked up.

About fifty people are currently detained at Mesnil-Amelot including 14 women, said François Mercier, the new interdepartmental director of the border police of the CRA who, taken aback by the visit of the senator, still accepted the entry of the delegation, made up of seven journalists.

On January 20, in this CRA in Seine-et-Marne, foreigners started a fire to protest against a court decision keeping them in detention because they had refused a PCR test, necessary for their expulsion from French territory.

In recent months, many migrants have refused testing for the new coronavirus in order to escape deportation.

"When we set fire, what I absolutely do not approve is that there is a fed up," said Ms. Benbassa, denouncing "aberrations in court decisions" which lead to foreigners in detention.

An Algerian national is thus detained in Mesnil-Amelot for the third time even though his expulsion procedure had been canceled in court, according to Cimade, an association supporting migrants and refugees, with a branch there.

"It's hard, I'm holding on with medication," the 40-year-old Algerian who has lived in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis) told AFP for five years.

"People do not understand imprisonment", explains Julia Labrosse, legal worker.

"There is no flight (of planes due to the pandemic, editor's note) therefore no expulsion. There are tensions and detainees denounce police violence", she adds.

In 2020, the number of expulsions of illegal aliens fell by 51% under the impact of restrictions linked to the pandemic.

© 2021 AFP