Same treatment as that applied to terrorists: Gérald Darmanin wants to “isolate in prison” the “100 biggest drug traffickers”

The new Minister of Justice Gérald Darmanin said he was in favor of increased isolation in detention “of the 100 biggest drug traffickers” and the construction of new prisons for the execution of sentences of “a few months, weeks, or even days”, in an interview published Saturday evening on the website of Parisien.

Appointed Monday evening to the Chancellery, the new Minister of Justice identified “three walls in front of us that are very worrying for the Nation” : organized crime and drug gangs, prison overcrowding (80,130 detainees on November 1, a new record) and the delays in hearing trials.

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“I asked the prison administration to give me a list of the 100 biggest drug traffickers incarcerated, those likely to have contacts outside to continue their criminal activities and we will put them in isolation, as we do for terrorists“, he explained.

This isolation will not be “classic“, he continued, but “inspired by the model applied to the biggest terrorists we have arrested”.

Building more small prisons

“None of them can order jihadist attacks” from their cells, Mr. Darmanin added. Regarding petty crime, he means“to lock up people sentenced to short or even very short sentences in prisons with a maximum of a few dozen places for a stay of a few months, weeks or even days”.

These new prisons “would be easier to build and more acceptable to local elected officials”, Mr. Darmanin considered. The former Minister of the Interior (July 2020-September 2024) reaffirmed his “voluntarism”: “Place Vendôme, I want there to be a before and after, I will fight on the budget”.

“It would make no sense to appoint a Minister of Justice as Minister of State, to put him so high in the protocol order (in third place, Editor's note), to bring me back to the government, and ultimately not give me the means to carry out my action so awaited by the French”, assured the new tenant of Place Vendôme.

Concerning the introduction of the notion of consent in the definition of rape by the penal code, he responded that he was “in favor of anything that will allow women to be better protected” and will study “with the greatest seriousness the bill tabled in this regard”.

After a trip to Picardy on Wednesday, an interview on Thursday at 8 p.m. on TF1, the Minister of Justice will go to the Paris judicial court on Sunday to meet magistrates, clerks and duty lawyers.