MSN
France will imprison 200 of its most dangerous drug traffickers in two high-security prisons, the Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin has announced.
In an interview with broadcaster France 2 on Thursday evening, Darmanin said he had “decided to strike hard”.
The minister, who has made tackling the drugs trade a top priority since assuming the role in December, said the facilities would be renovated to make them “completely hermetic”.
Some of the drug traffickers will be housed at a prison in Vendin-le-Vieilby in the northern French Pas-de-Calais department by late July, he promised.
The remaining prisoners will be sent to a facility in Condé-sur-Sarthe in the western Orne department by mid-October, Darmanin added.
“That makes 200 drug traffickers, who by October 15, will be completely isolated from the rest of society,” he said.
The plans are an attempt to prevent drug traffickers from continuing their criminal activities from jail.
While Darmanin’s scheme involves transferring inmates to free up space at the two prisons, he confirmed that certain prisoners would not be moved.
“We will leave the most dangerous people in place,” he noted. “ All the people we will describe as dangerous to the outside world. Dangerous people, mainly drug traffickers, but also Islamist terrorists.”
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