France reforms criminal penalties: probation will be abolished

Abolition of parole, reduction of sentences from the current 225 to four, 'thematic' prisons for serious crimes only. It is a radical reform, barely outlined, but destined to be transformed into a bill to be presented by 14 July: in a France increasingly committed to the fight against drug trafficking, Gérald Darmanin, the French Minister of Justice (and former Minister of the Interior), with some presidential ambitions, wanted to outline the guidelines of his action, five months after taking office, slowly built up also on the basis of the reports commissioned by his predecessor, the socialist Didier Migaud. Darmanin, a Macronian, sent a letter to magistrates and employees of the Ministry of Justice, and then summoned the 1,000 MPs - deputies and senators - to the ministry on Monday evening to outline the next steps and kick off a series of consultations.

The reform is bound to cause debate. Some passages are certainly disruptive. The end of the sursis, the suspended sentence, for example, which today is recognised in 24% of sentences (data for 2023), compared to 14% of 'firm' prison sentences: quoting his mother, the minister has often recalled in recent weeks that many French citizens do not understand why so many convicted persons are then immediately released. The idea then is to replace this institution with alternative sentences to prison, which today cover 14.9% of cases. Not very different is the motivation behind the desire to simplify penalties: 'recognisability' on the part of citizens. Not secondary, however, is the issue of recidivism, which involves 60% of those sentenced within five years.

Punishments will therefore be reduced to four categories: prison (without parole); the peine de probation, which will include probation, home detention with electronic bracelet, socially useful work, forms of restorative justice; fines and jour-amends, the transformation of days of detention into an equal number of payments; and mandatory or prohibitory sentences. The use of confiscation of property will be expanded, while those convicted will have to pay the costs of investigation and justice. New, simplified forms of procedure will be introduced on a principle similar to the Italian plea bargain (whereas the criminal decree is already widely used).

Darmanin intends to introduce minimum thresholds of sanctions - currently absent in the French system, which only provides for ceilings - and to allocate prisons to drug trafficking and violence against persons: terrorism, murders, sexual assaults, violence in the family, as well as cases of non-compliance with other forms of sanctions.The reason is simple. French prisons today accommodate about 82,900 people, but have a capacity of 62,400. However, Darmanin also intends to tackle the problem by building new prisons, increasing expulsions of foreign prisoners and distinguishing prisons according to the dangerousness of the prisoners. On the other hand, between 2019 and 2023," the letter sent to magistrates and ministry employees recalls, "the number of people involved in completed and resolved judgments increased in France by 59 per cent. However, the government has paid attention to the needs of justice: the ministry's budget has increased since 2017 by 48 per cent, employees by 16 per cent.

The reform is linked to the law on drug trafficking, which was voted unanimously in the Sénat (with the abstention of the ecologists) and by a very large majority in the Assemblée national (the radical left wing of France insoumise opposed) on 28 and 29 April. The law, which aims to deal with the recent wave of tragically 'theatrical' crimes linked to the presence of gangs of traffickers in some cities, provides for the creation of a specialised national prosecutor's office, the strengthening of the status of 'repentant', the establishment of a 'dossier-coffre', a 'safe dossier' to withhold from the defence certain information on the use of special investigation techniques. Also introduced was a ban on drug dealers appearing in the neighbourhood where they sold drugs, and the administrative closure of shops suspected of laundering.