Demonstrations of October 17: saturated police stations in Paris, lawyers criticize “degrading treatment” in police custody

Saturated cells, no meals... Lawyers denounced "degrading treatment" suffered by people placed in police custody in police stations in Paris and the inner suburbs, under pressure to manage the numerous arrests carried out on Saturday October 17 and Sunday October 18, after a day of social mobilization accompanied by violence and looting.

“The cells are overflowing and we are losing the principles of dignity,” Alexis Baudelin, of the Legal Team Paris, a collective of lawyers who has made police violence one of its specialties, told AFP. “The people are on top of each other, and when there is no more room at all, we hang them handcuffed on benches,” continues the criminal lawyer, who assisted clients at the 7th arrondissement police station. “You have to imagine the discomfort of being handcuffed to a bench for hours. They are in police custody in distress, with degrading treatment,” accuses Alexis Baudelin.

In the 5th arrondissement, same congestion. “The police station is overcrowded, it’s unmanageable,” warns a lawyer, Dalia Frantz, who was assisting two students. "As for the men, there were 18 in the cell, with eight mattresses, compared to three or four usually", and "for their part, the women were twelve", describes the lawyer. "The student I defended was exhausted. She cried the entire interview."

“They are overwhelmed, they don’t have the means”

The criminal lawyer also assisted a 17-year-old teenager who slept with “seven other minors” in a cell with “only one mattress”. When she saw her client on Sunday morning, "he had not eaten", points out Dalia Frantz, who denounces "confinement conditions contrary to human dignity". The lawyer claims that when she asked the police to call her to keep her informed of the legal outcome for her clients, they told her that they “would not do it because they did not have time”.

The criminal lawyers interviewed by the AFP criticize placements in police custody and their extensions without valid reason. “Normally, the police must investigate and verify with the prosecution the validity and necessity of the police custody measure,” recalls lawyer Alice Becker, “but from what I have seen, they are overwhelmed. They do not have the means. So they extend the police custody.” The authorities "choose to detain people just to teach them a good lesson, it's a technique of repression", accuses Alexis Baudelin, of the Legal Team Paris, who predicts that "nine out of ten police custody will end in classification" without follow-up.

More than half of prolonged police custody

Nationwide, some 2,000 people were arrested on Saturday, according to the Interior Ministry. In the Paris region, there were 557 people in police custody at the end of Sunday afternoon, including 433 adults (77%), said Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau on TF1 on Monday morning. They were mainly arrested for crimes against property (219), for groups with a view to committing violence (around a hundred) and violence against people holding public authority (49). Nearly 64% of adults have had their police custody extended.

Faced with this influx, the prosecution has already tried to unload Paris and its police stations on Sunday. More than 200 of these 557 police custody took place in border departments: 45 in Hauts-de-Seine, 61 in Seine-Saint-Denis, and 45 others in Val-de-Marne, while 53 were entrusted to the rail network service.

More than 130 police officers were added to the total during the night from Sunday to Monday, according to Laure Beccuau, but this count includes "all Parisian delinquency", and not just the people arrested during the new lootings.