The new director of the Nîmes remand center, Catherine Gay-Giat, has officially taken up her duties

Catherine Gay-Giat est la nouvelle directrice de la maison d'arrêt de Nîmes Midi Libre – C.R.

Catherine Gay-Giat est la nouvelle directrice de la maison d’arrêt de Nîmes. Elle a été officiellement installée dans ses fonctions, ce 21 janvier, par Stéphane Gély, directeur interrégional des services pénitentiaires de Toulouse.

Arriving in December 2024, Catherine Gay-Giat is the new director of the Nîmes remand center. She was officially installed in her position this Tuesday during a ceremony presided over by Stéphane Gély, interregional director of Toulouse prison services and in the presence of the Gard prefect. The new director succeeds Aurélie Martinière who has been the new director of the Creps (resource, expertise and sports performance center) in Montpellier since last December

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Catherine Gay-Giat has been deputy head of the Baumettes penitentiary in Marseille since 2021. She also worked at the Aix-Provence Court of Appeal, as a specialist assistant in the fight against violent radicalization. She joined the Penitentiary in 1992 and held the positions of deputy director at the Salon-de-Provence detention center. The civil servant also worked as a continuing education advisor in the National Education system and, in 2006, was head of the integration and probation department at the interregional directorate of penitentiary services in the Paca-Corse region and head of the “health” mission.

In Nîmes, she will manage a remand center that officially has 200 places for more than 400 inmates today. Perpignan prison is also facing severe overcrowding. “Yesterday, in Perpignan, we only had three mattresses left on the floor, noted Stéphane Gély, the interregional director of prison services in Toulouse. And in Nîmes, a few weeks ago, there was no more room in the women's section… Prison overcrowding calls into question the meaning of punishment. We need to find solutions.”

Two new districts inaugurated in 2025

The Nîmes remand center is the only penitentiary establishment in the Gard. 159 civil servants work there. The new director, Catherine Gay-Giat, will inaugurate two new accommodation districts in 2025, one for men with 120 places and the other for women with 30 places with their exercise yards and sports fields.

A new penitentiary establishment with 700 places (with 400 to 450 jobs within the structure) should see the light of day in a few years, on the former work base of the bypass railway of the Montpellier-Nîmes line and Montpellier between Nîmes and Milhaud. According to the prefect of Gard, the project “is moving forward”. A final meeting took place a few days ago.

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