A policy of zero-tolerance towards French police ill-treatment of detainees is among a list of recommendations to the government published today by Council of Europe anti-torture monitors.
The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) also wants conditions of detention in police and gendarmerie cells as well as in administrative holding centres for foreign nationals to be improved.
Whilst the committee welcomes reforms to improve treatment whilst in police custody, prisons and psychiatric care, it reports the use of excessive force by some prison staff and the “appreciable risk” of inter-prisoner violence.
The report’s authors also call on the French authorities to take “urgent action in respect of persons awaiting placement in units for difficult patients and prisoners suffering from psychiatric disorders requiring hospital care (generally kept for prolonged periods, often under restraint, in seclusion rooms in general psychiatry departments).”
More news on France
