Overview

• Gérald Darmanin has proposed extending the maximum duration of garde à vue from 48 to 72 hours for cases involving aggravated sexual violence and feminicides, aiming to better protect victims and enhance investigative processes.
• He announced plans for 'operations place nette' in prisons to tackle issues such as illicit phone use by inmates, including generalizing phone signal jammers across all facilities.
• Darmanin advocates for the creation of smaller, 'human-scale' detention centers dedicated to short-term sentences, with the goal of improving sentence execution and reducing recidivism.
• France's prison system faces severe overcrowding, with over 80,000 inmates for 62,000 available places, leading to a density of 128.5% and persistent criticism from human rights organizations.
• Critics question the feasibility and effectiveness of these proposals, citing the high costs of prison construction and the need for broader penal reforms to address systemic challenges.