Overview
- Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin opened the experimental program with a €29 million envelope covering six high‑risk facilities and about 5,500 inmates.
- The selected prisons are La Santé (Paris), Arras, Dijon, Toulouse, Toulon and Rennes, identified as sites with frequent contraband deliveries.
- Measures include package scanners and millimetre‑wave portals, with phone‑jamming systems costed at €4–5 million per site.
- Security works are slated to finish within six to seven months, with exercise yards to be covered in 2026 to stop phone ‘projections’.
- Officials framed the plan within anti‑mafia‑inspired reforms, noted 80,000 phones seized in 2024, announced 1,000 new prison officer hires next year and set the goal of later expanding the model nationwide.