You don't have permission to access the page you requested What is this page?The website you are visiting is protected.For security reasons this page cannot be displayed one of the brothers responsible for the Charlie Hebdo attacks spent 20 months in Fleury-Merogis prison just outside Paris where he crossed paths with a radical imam with ties to Osama bin Laden.This photo shows the men's building in May 2014 Among the sweeping changes France is proposing in the aftermath of this month's terrorist attacks in Paris are new measures to fight Islamic radicalization in its prisons It is an enormous problem brought into starker relief because two of the suspects in the attacks earlier this month were products of the French penal system one of the brothers behind the attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo went from petty criminal to violent jihadist after just 20 months behind bars he also met a Muslim convert named Amedy Coulibaly — who went on to help the Kouachi brothers in the Paris attacks The problem of radicalization in French prisons starts with numbers More than half the people in French prisons today are Muslim — and that has made it easy for radical Islamists to target new recruits problem that you have with high rates of Afro-American and Hispanics populating the prisons seems to be like now we have a high rate of Muslims living in the prisons," says Laila Fathi a Muslim activist in Paris who lives in the 19th arrondissement not far from the housing projects where Cherif and Said Kouachi grew up Many inmates convert to Islam or rediscover their Muslim roots behind bars a political science professor at Leiden University and researcher at Sciences Po says while there are deep believers who aren't radical in French prisons the environment makes it easy for Islamists to prey on prisoners "Prisons are ripe for radicalization because you have people in a confined space who have nothing else to do than talk to one another," he says "People who initially might not be part of violent networks — or networks related to jihad — end up caught in these kinds of networks There is a simple gang logic [at work] that we find in many other types of settings in prisons in the U.S says the thought of embracing Islam may help prisoners cope with the simple stress of incarceration "A lot of inmates who have been jailed are depressed they are looking for some raison d'etre," she says "And it is true that Islam has become very popular very successful within French prisons as a rebirth for these people." Muslim prisoners can also give the impression that they are coping with prison and that is attractive to those who might not be "So to people who find themselves in crisis as they adjust to prison Islam can seem like a refuge and that makes it easy for radical Islamists to draw others to them." French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira visited Fresnes prison where authorities are conducting an experiment sidelining approximately 20 radicalized Muslim inmates being held there Cherif Kouachi spent nearly 20 months inside Fleury-Merogis prison he was exposed to one of France's most radical jihadists Beghal had trained with Osama bin Laden and was sent to France decades ago to set up a terrorist cell there Prosecutors say the group was supposed to target American interests Beghal was convicted of plotting to bomb the American Embassy in Paris He was kept in isolation at Fleury-Merogis but young men like Kouachi and Coulibaly managed to contact him anyway Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere was the investigating magistrate who sent Kouachi to prison while he awaited trial in 2005 "I was very concerned about the situation in prisons," Bruguiere says When I was chief we ordered them to separate Inmates find ways to communicate illegally .. We have to take these people and put them in a totally separate facility to stop this from happening." One of the proposals now under consideration by the French government is to create a separate facility for Islamists who are trying to radicalize others Several years ago, inmates at Fleury-Merogis managed to smuggle a video out of the prison to show the outside world how bad conditions were there. The video cuts to showers green with mildew and cells so narrow a man can extend his arms and touch both walls Fleury-Merogis is what's known as a supersize or titan prison; it holds nearly 4,000 prisoners and is the biggest prison in Europe is a perfect setting in which radicalization can occur "The prisoners are a vulnerable population," says Fathi who worries about the social issues — crime substandard schools — that lead to the high rates of incarceration among Muslims "How can we avoid more Kouachi brothers coming out of prison now?" she says "The government has to take some steps beyond just trying to isolate Islamists behind bars Become an NPR sponsor Prisons have played a major role in the filmmaker Philippe Lacôte’s life since he was 7 years old when he would visit his mother who was a political prisoner in the Ivory Coast’s largest penitentiary during the regime of former President Félix Houphouët-Boigny Known as the MACA (Maison d’Arrêt et de Correction d’Abidjan) the prison is a concrete hulk on the edge of a forest in Yopougon the most densely populated suburb of Abidjan Lacôte would travel once a week in a collective taxi that drove along the perimeter of the trees to the MACA Speaking to New Lines from Abidjan during a telephone interview Lacôte recalled his experiences with vivid clarity “The visiting area in the MACA doesn’t have individual spaces It’s a large room and people find a corner for themselves There are prisoners who sell beignets and cakes; you meet other prisoners and interact but I would see the other prisoners as well At the far end of the visiting room there was a door; the prisoners would arrive one by one and we could see all the other prisoners waiting behind that door.” In the course of his work shooting documentary and fiction films he visited prisons in a number of African countries as well as in Europe where he studied and continues to spend most of his time as he gradually realized that penitentiaries were a world unto themselves This compelled him to wonder about the stories that emerge from unexpected places there was an unusual practice that lent itself all too well to Lacôte’s curiosity it involved what has come to be known as the “Roman” — French for novel a prisoner is chosen to tell stories to fellow inmates the incarcerated audience gets a glimpse into another life helping them to escape their own reality within the drab prison walls Lacôte first learned about this practice sometime in 2013 through a childhood friend who had just been released from the MACA It didn’t take much for Lacôte to formulate a plan: He would make a film that showed prison from the inside; how it functioned as a society in its own right with emphasis on the primordial impulse of communities stripped of the distractions of modernity to gather round and tell stories the World Prison Brief estimated there were over 11.5 million prisoners worldwide It touched upon some of the issues pertaining to human rights recidivism and the root causes of mass incarceration — all of which vary from country to country But there was one constant that spanned cultures and geography: No matter where prisoners had a fundamental need for self-expression numerous studies of penitentiaries have shown the benefits of arts programs These programs also correlate with a higher level of self-discipline among the incarcerated No matter the locale — whether on the African continent these activities appear to have grown organically among the prison population the MACA was intended to hold no more than 1,500 prisoners at any one time making it one of the most overpopulated penitentiaries in West Africa the prison inmates run the place via what Lacôte describes as a fully fledged unofficial government no real input from the MACA’s administration regarding rehabilitation programs writes the social anthropologist Frédéric Le Marcis who spent five years of regular fieldwork observing daily life in the prison Activities are run by the inmates themselves including the now-traditional storytelling “Roman” routine The “Roman” is the basis for Lacôte’s narrative in his award-winning 2020 fiction film “Night of Kings,” which highlights West Africa’s oral tradition of the griot Inmates use “storytelling to loosen their noose pushing back the walls via their imagination,” says Lacôte about his film All this began to tie back to his childhood the MACA became a fantastical kingdom for him In the mesmerizing “Night of Kings” (a reference to Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night”) the viewer is left feeling on the cusp of entering a fairytale as the narrative interweaves magical realism with strong documentary elements The story follows the arrival of a young prisoner — a character based on a real-life bank robber nicknamed Yacou le Chinois — who is quickly chosen by the head of the inmates’ informal government to be the Roman Lacôte’s Roman must tell the prisoners a story “Night of Kings” introduces a dramatic Scheherazade-like element: When the Roman’s story comes to an end And so the fictitious Roman begins narrating his story on the night of a blood moon he eventually hits his storytelling stride cheered on (and sometimes jeered) by the other prisoners The story the Roman tells is also based on a real-life character the head of a gang who met his death when he was set on fire by the people he had victimized It is a collective narrative in which the entire group must be addressed and the strength of the story is that the prisoners live it it’s not a passive storytelling space,” says Lacôte It is a reflection of the magic that can sometimes arise during story hour inside the MACA Almost a decade before the MACA was established More than 1,000 prisoners broke discipline The revolt lasted five days and left 33 prisoners and 10 prison guards dead It was a turning point in the United States which shed light on conditions for the incarcerated and could have granted the much-needed apparatus of self-expression to America’s prisoners PEN America’s Prison and Justice Writing program has been established holding an annual writing contest and helping bring inmates’ writing to the public the program published “The Sentences That Create Us: Crafting a Writer’s Life in Prison,” a book on the process of writing with contributors offering advice on how to work “within and around the severe institutional psychological and physical limitations” of writing in prison the director of Prison and Justice Writing at PEN America she was able to distribute 75,000 copies to people in prison She works with formerly incarcerated people and writers to develop pilot programs in prisons and lead writing groups creating resources so that local communities can learn and run their own programs Meissner and her team have also embarked on “a huge project about prison libraries — not every prison has a library … It’s really hard to work with prisons there’s no easy way to get a handle on this Some prisons are really interested in the concept of rehabilitation and some prisons are completely averse and have no programs,” she told New Lines over Zoom she believes deeply in the benefits of writing for prisoners I think about people in solitary confinement and that writing can be a portal — there is something to the life of characters and it’s also pro-social in sharing your condition Maybe there’s relief because you’re lost in the act of creation.” manager of the Prison Writing Program at PEN America served eight and a half years in three New York prisons on a felony conviction of which five were at the notorious 19th-century Sing Sing facility Although Sing Sing is known for its now-retired electric chair “Old Sparky” (in which two members of the Communist Party were executed in 1953 for conspiracy to commit espionage) it’s also “a hub for volunteers running prison programs,” Pollock told New Lines he was involved in the slam poetry scene and had started playing songs during open mics went to his local public library in South Jamaica where he still remembers how “the block the library was on was one of the hottest drug-dealing scenes in the neighborhood.” “I realized after getting to prison that I had not been understanding how to process a story I’d thrive off action scenes but didn’t internalize characters’ journeys … It’s hard to think about how I was human before the storytelling,” said Pollock “people ask me to facilitate spaces where they can tell their stories and share and that comes from an appreciation of a story and being able to see its resonance in life.” Books took on a whole new meaning for Pollock when he was behind bars “You’re only allowed to have a certain amount of property in your cell The books you have are really special and the ones you swap are so important,” he said several nonfiction books stood out for Pollock as being precious for prisoners There was the go-to reference tool “Black’s Law Dictionary,” a must-read for any prisoner There was the civil rights lawyer Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” which was banned in the states of New York and New Jersey until protests reversed the ban (The book is still banned in many other states.) Pollock recalled that there was a long waiting list to obtain Alexander’s book and by the time he received his copy “it was a weathered book (but) I needed to get it to other people.” He added that “every single book is a vehicle for shared thought.” So intense is the book exchange universe among the incarcerated that Pollock remembered crying when he finally read the public interest lawyer Bryan Stevenson’s “Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption.” “I loved the book so much because I was afraid it might get lost,” he said “I lost an uncountable number of books and small pieces of writing all that transience and fragility leads to an understanding that it’s not the work that’s important but the process Part of Pollock’s work with PEN America’s Prison and Justice Writing program includes participating in workshops and panels at universities championing the power of the arts in prison education and restorative justice practices He now works as an illustrator and writer on top of his job Pollock has also been closely following a study launched by PEN America called the “Right to Read in American Prisons Project,” led by the anthropologist Anthony Johnson restrict access to literature and educational material these days; besides books being banned in schools in 32 states They include a family medical guide by the American Medical Association banned because it contains photographs of a nude child; Neil Gaiman’s “Faeries,” because it contains “sexually explicit images”; and no fewer than 12 books about the Renaissance artist and scientist Leonardo da Vinci also due to “sexually explicit images.” Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” on the other hand Toni Morrison’s novel “The Bluest Eye” and Octavia Butler’s novel “Kindred” were also banned some of the heaviest curbs on free speech among the incarcerated in the Western world no books are officially banned in prison on a national level though prison directors can refuse certain titles if they feel a book incites hatred or terrorism Hunting magazines and certain pornographic material can also get the axe an interesting independent experiment has been unfolding The Prix Monte-Cristo — a nod to Alexandre Dumas’ “The Count of Monte Cristo,” in which the main character is unjustly held prisoner in a fortress on an island — is awarded by a jury of readers who are themselves behind bars and students in the school in prison The prize was established in 2018 by three women who are authors and work in publishing; all three had visited prisons either to run workshops or to speak about their books had given a talk in a prison about one of her novels that had won a prize and after spending hours discussing literature with inmates she came away deeply moved So she set up the Monte-Cristo prize with Roxane Defer and Maëlle Guillaud a spin-off of the prestigious Goncourt literary prize called the “Goncourt des détenus” (the inmates’ Goncourt) launched with prisoners also acting as literary judges it is sponsored by the government and 31 prisons take part in the process education is administered by the Ministry of Education and supervised by the Ministry of Justice The books in the running for the Monte-Cristo prize which is symbolic as no money is exchanged are always on the theme of confinement but not necessarily incarceration and must be written by a contemporary author who can come to the prison to receive the prize The choices of books are uncensored by prison authorities The jurors work on the list of books each week for part of the school year with Céline Declerck the Fleury-Mérogis teacher who committed to the program Defer and Guillaud visit the prison once a month to work with the students Samia Sedjari runs the seven schools located within Fleury-Mérogis — one in each building — with a total of 800 students Sedjari told New Lines; some are young high school dropouts others are high school graduates and some have begun college degrees “It’s this crossroads of different paths that make the classes interesting.” One class each year is chosen to be the jury but the Monte-Cristo prize is currently only on its second round I attended the first Monte-Cristo prize ceremony in Fleury-Mérogis Nine male jury members from the D1 block chose a novel by Émilie de Turckheim from among eight on the list When de Turckheim was handed the award by an enthusiastic jury she told them it meant the world to her: “Since I was small child I’ve thought about imprisonment What does the spirit and the body do to continue to exist well-known for his involvement in education and social work The Franco-Moroccan author Tahar Ben Jelloun will be the 2023 Monte-Cristo prize’s mentor Ben Jelloun was imprisoned for 18 months in an army camp in the 1960s and later wrote about prison in his novel “This Blinding Absence of Light,” which was based on the testimony of a former inmate of Tazmamart Morocco’s ghastly dungeon for political prisoners now closed following international pressure prisoners often behave in a provocative manner They’re offered six months of freedom in which to choose a book.” who also runs writing workshops in a nearby prison “They’re often excellent readers and don’t know it they gain a certain feeling of power; it humanizes them and gives them dignity They read with their life; they find answers in their reading “A prison is seen as a place of residue or failure It is important to say that prison is an unexpected producer of stories and culture,” Philippe Lacôte told me It is unlikely that his film has been screened in a U.S but he is still trying to organize a screening for the MACA inmates Sign up to our mailing list to receive our stories in your inbox Will be used in accordance with our Privacy Policy Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker Teargas fired to disperse strikers at Fleury-Mérogis jail on fourth day of nationwide protests French police have clashed with striking prison guards at Europe’s largest jail on the fourth day of walkouts across the country over security concerns Officers fired teargas as scuffles broke out at the Fleury-Mérogis prison where guards are protesting after a series of attacks on staff has promised to draw up a national prisons plan to address concerns by the end of February The attacks that sparked the guards’ protest have highlighted security problems and radicalisation inside often overcrowded French prisons two guards were attacked by four inmates at the Borgo jail in Corsica The guards were taken to hospital in a serious condition and the four inmates were arrested after gendarmes moved in to secure the prison Outside the entrance to Fleury-Mérogis jail about 150 striking guards built a barricade of burning tyres and wooden pallets to prevent their colleagues from getting to work A unit of CRS riot police broke through the picket line firing teargas to disperse the demonstrators and allowing other staff to enter the prison while striking guards were held behind a barrier “The CRS charged and fired teargas at us but we tried to resist,” a 28-year-old guard who gave his name as Sacha told AFP Police stand near striking guards and burning wooden palettes at the Vendin-le-Vieil jail in northern France on Tuesday Photograph: Francois Lo Presti/AFP/Getty ImagesOn Thursday about 120 prisoners refused to return to their cells after their midday walk in the yard They were brought back in with the help of specially trained intervention teams France’s prison administration service said Six prisoners who are thought to have led the protest were sent to the punishment block Despite talks to resolve the protests and pledges by Macron to outline plans for an overhaul of French prisons the unions decided to continue the industrial action The strike began on 11 January after a German convict attacked three guards with scissors and a razor blade at a high-security prison in northern France guards at more than 123 facilities were “mobilised” Figures provided by the prisons’ administration said 87 of the country’s 188 detention facilities had been affected by the strike action said two-thirds of France’s prisons had been hit by industrial action Prison staff were protesting against “the absence of consideration for personnel and an absence of equipment notably security material in penitentiary establishments” Union officials have been holding talks with the justice ministry over longstanding complaints of low pay insufficient staffing and overcrowding at prisons Guards warn that their safety is at risk after several attacks by prisoners linked to Islamic extremism or under surveillance because of the risk of radicalisation a French court jailed anti-Semitic activist Hervé Lalin for two posts on the internet that defamed the Jewish people and one that denied the Holocaust Lalin released a YouTube video entitled “The Jews Lalin published an online book titled “Anti-Semitism Without Complexity or Taboo” which denied the Nazi Holocaust—a criminal offense in France Lalin has been sent to prison for anti-Semitic acts before he was sentenced to five months in jail due to the content of numerous passages in his book “Understand Judaism- Understand Anti-Semitism” The offender has now begun a 17-month jail sentence at the Fleury-Mérogis prison near Paris Read more: https://www.algemeiner.com/2020/09/21/french-court-jails-neo-nazi-apologist-and-holocaust-denier-for-antisemitic-messages/ Ocado Group plc (“Ocado”) has announced today that operations are live for Groupe Casino’s Customer Fulfilment Centre (CFC) at Fleury-Mérogis, near Paris. The facility is the first international Ocado CFC to go live for an Ocado Solutions partner. The CFC has begun operations with a small number of test orders, and it will expand to fulfil more orders and wider public deliveries in selected areas over the coming months. At capacity, the facility will handle a turnover of up to €500m and serve households across the Paris and Hauts de France regions for customers shopping with Casino’s Monoprix brand. Monoprix has launched a new ecommerce service with the Ocado Smart Platform, Monoprix Plus, which delivered its first order fulfilled through the CFC on Wednesday 18th March. Jamie Kerr, Head of Communications, Ocado Solutions, on 01707 228 000 Martin Robinson at Tulchan Communications, on 020 7353 4200 Enter your email address to receive the latest updates from Ocado Group Sign UpContact usWe’re always happy to hear from you. Get in touchShop with Ocado.comIn the UK, you can shop for groceries online with Ocado.com ​CategoriesCategoriesEnglishGENERALBy phone in prison that is how terrorist Salah Abdeslam got married last summer4 November 2022 Salah Abdeslam the sole surviving perpetrator of the Paris attacks on 13 November 2015 and suspect in the attacks in Belgium on 22 March 2016 He did so from his cell in France's Fleury-Mérogis French authorities had known for some time that Salah Abdeslam had wedding plans His new wife is not the woman he was in a relationship with before the Paris attacks The terrorist has already been convicted for his role in the November 2015 attacks in the French capital and the 15 March 2016 shooting in Forest He was transferred to Belgium in mid-July for the trial of the 22 March 2016 attacks in Zaventem and Brussels A prison guard stands at the door of an inmate's cell at the Fleury-Merogis prison some 30 kms south of Paris on March 31 Copy linkGet updates in your mailboxYour email addressSubscribeBy clicking "Subscribe" I confirm I have read and agree to the Privacy Policy rapid and high-quality information 24 hours a day from Belgium and abroad to all Belgian media not to mention entertainment and lifestyle our journalists and press photographers produce hundreds of photos and news stories Since the end of March 2022 English has been added as a language businesses and various organisations that need reliable information Belga News Agency also offers a comprehensive range of corporate services to meet all their communication needs www.belganewsagency.eu Connecting decision makers to a dynamic network of information Bloomberg quickly and accurately delivers business and financial information as he leaves the Fleury-Merogis jail after being released in Fleury-Merogis Photographer: Martin Bureau/AFP via Getty Images 2018 at 4:50 PM EDTBookmarkSaveLock This article is for subscribers only.A former mayor of Kazakhstan’s largest city and his son may be on the hook for more than $280,000 for violating a confidentiality order in a multibillion-dollar lawsuit over embezzlement and money laundering that also allegedly involved purchases of condominiums at the luxury Trump Soho tower The fine is the latest development in a yearslong legal battle on three continents between Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank and its former chairman whom the bank accuses of stealing $4 billion BTA said Ablyazov enlisted the help of his son-in-law French authorities only introduced measures to tackle jihadi extremist recruitment of prisoners after the Charlie Hebdo attack France knew it had a problem with Islamic radicalisation in its prisons long before it became clear that two of the three gunmen who carried out the Charlie Hebdo attack in January last year had first met both each other and a dangerous al-Qaida-linked militant in the country’s largest jail. Read moreBut it was not until after the shootings, which claimed 17 lives at the satirical magazine’s offices and a kosher supermarket in Paris that measures were announced to counter the mounting risk of the country’s prisons becoming recruitment centres for many more homegrown extremists who with his brother Saïd shot dead 12 more befriended each other and convicted extremist Djamel Beghal in Fleury-Mérogis jail south of Paris It is now one of five prisons around France that place selected extremists – most convicted of terror offences – in separate blocks, aiming to prevent extremist ideology spreading and allowing for improved surveillance. Trialled at Fresnes prison outside Paris, the controversial regime – which could eventually be introduced in 26 jails around the country – groups 20-25 radicals together in a secure unit with restricted access to social and recreational activities, the internet and the telephone. Read moreInmates are selected based on the supposed radicalisation threat they represent using a “detection grid” assessing personality, background and observed religious behaviour. France has also recruited nearly 400 extra warders psychologists and surveillance specialists for its larger prisons France still has only around 180 Muslim prison chaplains Many of France’s Muslim prisoners are disadvantaged and disaffected young men from communities blighted by poverty and unemployment often inexperienced and intimidated warders and with few Muslim chaplains to provide more moderate guidance they can be easy prey for jihadi recruiters The path from petty criminal to radical Islamist via prison is well trodden: the Charlie Hebdo gunmen as well as Mohamed Merah who shot seven people dead in Toulouse in 2012 accused of four murders at the Jewish museum in Brussels in 2014 were undoubtedly at least part-radicalised in prison The government acknowledges that of the 170-odd known radical Islamists in French jails for terror offences in 2015, only 16% had previously done time. Read moreThe attacks that killed 130 people in Paris last November are a case in point: while the five French nationals who were part of the Franco-Belgian terror cell that attacked the Bataclan concert hall Stade de France and a string of Paris cafes and restaurants were mostly flagged as suspected radicals and had travelled to Syria to fight with Islamic State Some have highlighted the risk that in the hands of untrained prison officers the “detection grid” could increase the risk of radicalisation by identifying the wrong candidates for a secure block or failing to identify the right ones: devout but moderate Muslims may be mistaken for extremists while a new generation of proselytisers have become adept at disguising themselves as moderates Others stress the urgent necessity of recruiting young Muslim prison workers and imams more in tune with younger inmates and familiar with social media; still more criticise the fundamental lack of a properly structured deradicalisation programme inside the secure blocks Countering radicalisation in prison remains, said leading criminologist Alain Bauer a conundrum: “Concentrating extremists together will reinforce them; dispersing them allows them to spread their ideas and find new recruits.” USWNT star Korbin Albert starred in Paris Saint-Germain's triumph over Fleury in the Coupe de France Feminine final The rogue trader who clocked up £4.9bn worth of unauthorised losses during his time at Societe Generale has left Fleury Merogis prison in south Paris after serving just 110 days of a three-year jail sentence This approximately works out at just one day in prison for every €45m (£36m which has now become the largest rogue trading loss of its kind in history a judge ruled that Kerviel could serve the rest of his sentence outside custody by wearing an electronic tag after the former trader launched a range of appeals He will now wear an electronic bracelet which will prevent him from leaving the house between 2030 and 0700 Kerviel made billions of euros in losses after racking up €38bn of unauthorised trades which he attempted to unwind once the bets went sour He was then convicted in 2010 and sentenced to five years in jail although two of those years were suspended he also published a book L'engrenage: mémoires d'un trader (Downward Spiral: Memoirs of a Trader) which claimed that he not only didn't profit personally but other senior members of the bank knew of his trading activities Kerviel was told that he would not have to repay the bank for the €5bn he lost during his rogue trading spree he then surrendered to French authorities on 18 May 2014 to serve a three-year jail sentence he was given a conditional release from jail he would have only served 110 days after a judge in the court of appeal ruled that he would be able to leave prison with the use of an electronic tag Societe Generale has had to pay a €4m for failing to have adequate systems in place to prevent such large scale scandals from occurring