"La Santé – Maison d’arrêt de la Santé – last of Paris’s intra-muros jails. And along with Fresnes and Fleury-Mérogis one of Paris and its region largests. (Fleury-Mérogis is also Europe’s largest.)
Since last December France’s Ministry of Justice has been transferring La Santé’s inmates to other jails, and at 6 a.m. on Sunday, July 20, the final 60 were driven away in police vans – paniers à salade (salad basket) – to serve the rest of their incarceration sentences in another prison, that of Saran outside the town of Orléans.
La Santé in Paris’s 14th district – arrondissement – with a capacity of 1400 had these past years been home to around 2300 at a time, and one of the inmates’ complaints was that due to such overcrowding when there was a call from nature they had to oblige in front of their cell mates.
I am inclined to say ‘poor things’, as the prison in its 147 years of existence (was opened in 1867) has been home to a fair share of France’s criminals – thieves, robbers, rapists and murderers, the latter having had their heads chopped off with the guillotine in one of the prison’s courtyards."
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