The Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti, visiting a workshop in Villepinte prison, March 4, 2021. -

ROMUALD MEIGNEUX / SIPA

In order to facilitate reintegration, the Ministry of Justice wishes to upgrade work in prison.

Prisoners who work will thus be able to benefit from an employment contract, Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti announced on Sunday.

"There can be no gap between the prison and the rest of society, or else we consider that the prison is a separate society", explained the Minister of Justice in the program Zone interdite on M6.

"There are prisoners who for the first time in their life will discover work here [in prison], it is the pledge that they will leave delinquency", continued Eric Dupond-Moretti.

During the program, the Minister of Justice also announced the creation of a penitentiary code which, like the Civil Code or the Penal Code, will bring together “all the important rules” around detention.

Social rights and detention

The proposal is mentioned in the draft law "for confidence in the judicial institution" which must be presented to the Council of Ministers in mid-April.

The text also provides that the government can legislate by ordinance to allow "the opening of social rights to detained persons, since they are useful for their reintegration and in particular the rights to unemployment, old age, sickness and maternity insurance. and occupational disease and accident at work ”.

The working prisoners do not benefit from any real status, denounce for years organizations such as the French section of the International Prison Observatory (OIP).

During a speech before the National School of Prison Administration (Enap), in March 2018, the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron had affirmed that "the link which unites the prison administration and the inmate working within it" should no longer be "a unilateral act with the negation of all rights", but "a contractual link with the guarantees attached to it".

"We cannot ask detainees to respect society, to be able to reintegrate into it" if "we deny [their] dignity and [their] rights", underlined the Head of State.

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