Strasbourg, 18/05/2006 (Agence Europe) - French MEPs are calling for the same rights for access to French prisons as national parliamentarians, without having to submit prior request for authorisation. The rules in force in France, as in other EU countries, do not allow MEPs to visit prisons without warning the director of the penitentiary first, or other persons of authority. This difference in treatment is not justified, Socialist Adeline Hazan and Green member Jean-Luc Bennahmias believe. With 28 other French MEPs (PES, ALDE, Greens/EFA and GUE/NGL Groups), they sent a letter to the French Minister of Justice on 20 February. Several of those taking part in this action say that, as they have received no answer to their letter, they have decided to send another (on 20 April) and to pursue their campaign. There is no reason for this “double standards” situation, Mr Bennahmias said, specifying that this approach “is not in the aim of surprising anyone”. However, after the fashion of the Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe, Alvaro Gil-Roblès, who cast serious doubt on the conditions of detention in French prisons, Mr Bennahmias considered their situation “shameful” and that it was no doubt for this reason that the authorities did not wish to authorise access to MEPs under conditions identical to those for national MPs. An attempt to visit the Beaumettes prison in Marseilles by Socialists Marie-Arlette Carlotti and Guy Bono ended in failure despite the fact that they had submitted prior request for access. The two MEPs explained what had happened when speaking in Strasbourg, saying that they had received a proposal to visit two others detention centres in the region. Although MEPs often visit local prisons when travelling to anti-democratic countries, they cannot do so in the prisons in their own constituency in France, Ms Carlotti said indignantly. “Show me your prisons, and I shall tell you what your democracy is worth”, Green member Gérard Onesta said, denouncing this “Ubuesque” situation which, in his view, could be easily reviewed by the French government in order to restore a just balance between the nation's elected representatives.
Last February, a delegation for the European Parliament's Committee on Citizens' Freedoms went to Paris to visit two detention centres, depending this time on the Ministry of the Interior. The conditions in the centre had been denounced by several MEPs, mainly in the report by Spanish EPP-ED member, Augustin Diaz de Mera (EUROPE 9146).