Fewer foreigners in an irregular situation placed in retention, but longer

The administrative detention centers (CRA) received fewer foreigners in an irregular situation in 2024 than the previous year, but they stayed there longer, deplored the associations that intervene there, in their Annual report Posted Tuesday, April 29.

According to the five associations, 40,592 people were retained last year in CRAs awaiting their expulsion (against 46,955 in 2023) including 24,634 overseas, in Mayotte for almost all, and 16,228 in France.

Among those who were locked in mainland France, the majority were of Algerian nationality (32 %). Then come Tunisians (12 %), Moroccans (11 %) and Romanians (4.4 %).

Disseminated everywhere in France, the 25 CRAs, four of which are overseas, allow you to retain a person up to 90 days, or even 210 days in the event of terrorist activities. On average, people spent almost 33 days there, against 28.5 the previous year, which explains the decrease in the number of investments, according to associations mandated by the State to inform these people on their rights.

“In only four years, the average duration in detention has doubled”they write, denouncing increasingly repressive legislation. In 2020, this average duration was 16.7 days, underline the authors of the report. “All these developments have deleterious effects” on “The physical and mental state” Locked people, they deplore, evoking suicide attempts, autumutilation acts, violence and exacerbated tensions.

“A system that is based on absurd and mistreatment procedures can bring nothing positive, neither for those retained, nor for all the actors of CRA, nor for our whole society”said Fanélie Carrey-Conte, secretary general of Cimade, interviewed by the France-Presse agency (AFP).

“” Judge and party »»

The senatorial right, the first force of the high assembly, tabled a bill adopted at first reading in mid-March, which plans to extend the maximum duration of retention to 210 days for foreigners condemned for a crime or an offense punishable by at least five years’ imprisonment.

In their report, associations, however, recall that the placement in a detention center does not make it possible to move more, since 57.6 % of the people were released after their confinement. In addition, the extension of the duration spent in CRA does not result in an increase in distance, they underline. “The overwhelming majority” Distance (78 %) takes place within the first 45 days and less than 13 % beyond 60 days.

In the collimator of the Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, who accuses them of being “Judge and Party”the associations were worried about ten days ago, with a desire to oust them from these closed structures, kept by police officers. On May 12, a new bill tabled by senator Marie-Carole Ciuntu (LR) will be examined in order to entrust their tasks to the French Office of Immigration and Integration, placed under the supervision of the Ministry of the Interior.

This bill “Aims to lessen the capacities of people to exercise their rights, in particular to appeals”is indignant the Cimade, which retired in January from the Cra du Mesnil-Amot, larger in France, for lack of being able to fill “His missions in good conditions”.