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| Since the beginning of the year, 90 detainees committed suicide in the French prisons. The last one was a 16 years old boy in the Metz prison (north east of France). Why a so high rate of suicide? |
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For me there is a link between a society and its prisons: “ Tell me how are your jails and I will tell you which society you are living in” The jails reflect what is going on in a society.
The jails in France reveal a society that makes a great number of excluded persons, those who cannot compete and are left on the sidelines. Society does not need them. A society that provides so many unfair situations to its people has to build the jails that we have today. |
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Our prisons are overpopulated (we never had so many people in jail) and the jail conditions are distressful. Some jails are close to a revolt. To put in jail a young under 18 is a big mistake. We know that prisons destroy the individuals. We have non-custodial sentences, why are we not applying them? |
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| President Bush’s term of office is coming close to its end. He promised to establish peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians before leaving the Office. Where are we with this promise? |
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| This promise is dead. The President does not speak about it any more. His concerns are elsewhere. The peace process is stopped. In the occupied territories the permits to build houses are still given to the Israeli settlers. The unlawful settlements are not dismantled, the number of checkpoints are increasing, and 11, 000 Palestinians prisoners are still in Israel! There is still one prisoner in each Palestinian family! |
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| The confrontations that recently happened at Saint-Jean d’Acre showed how the coexistence between Jews and Arabs is fragile. The future of a Palestinian state is vanishing, however the Palestinians are still struggling for their rights. |
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| The European states, following the USA, recently voted for a huge saving plan for a total of 1,700 billions of Euros. Don’t you think that there are two different measures and that money can be found when it is for helping the banks? |
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It is perfectly true. In France the revenue of active solidarity (RSA, revenue de solidarité active) is opening some hope and is done to reduce by one third the number of poor by 2012 but it encounters a great difficulty to be financed, specially by the government. How much is it? 1,5 billion per year! Among the demonstrations in front of the National Bank of Belgium in Brussels, it was written on one panel: “Billions of Euros for Fortis and Dexia, what about me, and me, and me?” |
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| In the USA, those who could not reimburse their loan were expulsed from their home. The banks who misused their credit, (the sub primes), have been bailed out, at one exception the Lehman brothers… |
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