Fleury-Mérogis (France) (AFP)

Jean Castex went to Fleury-Mérogis (Essonne) remand center on Monday, the largest prison in Europe, which he visited for two hours in order to see the living and working conditions there.

Accompanied by the Keeper of the Seals Eric Dupond-Moretti, the Prime Minister surveyed the corridors of the block reserved for adults, from the visiting rooms to the medical unit through the probation insertion service (Spip).

Plunging into a cramped cell, TV on in the background and counting down the days engraved on the wall, Mr. Castex exchanged a few words with a detainee of Serbian origin who had just come out of his shower.

In another, a man in his thirties, imprisoned for 12 months, explains to him his desire to be able to work in the prison workshop, which offers a thousand places for 3,602 inmates to date according to the director of the establishment Franck Linarès.

While only a large quarter of prisoners in France work, Mr. Dupond-Moretti repeated his intention to "restart the machine".

"I will soon be going to Medef's summer school to appeal to the bosses," he says.

Questioned by a Force Ouvrière supervisor, Mr. Castex announced in passing that he was satisfying one of their salary demands, by granting the retroactivity of a bonus (Indemnity for prison charges) over the whole of 2021, while 'it was only supposed to start during the year.

The envelope is thus raised to 5.3 million euros, an average annual increase of around 200 euros per person.

The Prime Minister also spoke about the vaccination campaign with the head of service Valérie Kanoui, who detailed the difficulties related to entries and exits.

"It's gymnastics, it requires flexibility" but "it's complicated to organize" especially on the orders of doses, said the person in charge.

Currently, 21 detainees and 10 staff have tested positive for Covid, after massive screening carried out last week.

In this prison, whose occupancy rate stands at 127%, slightly below the national average for remand centers (132%), four clusters have been detected since February.

While the court of Sarreguemines (Moselle) is considering granting reductions in sentences to detainees if they are vaccinated, Mr. Castex said not to "condemn in principle" the initiative but does not wish "in any case" to generalize.

© 2021 AFP