OPINIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE FRENCH CGLPL no permanent means for evacuating the water; a bucket under the plughole suffices. Cells have no refrigerator, no kettle and no heating stove. The ventilation grills are often obstructed to prevent rats from entering the cells. Nonetheless, these rodents do manage to get in and feed on the the left-overs from meals which, through a lack of any closed space, are left on shelves or in door-less cupboards. Frequent backing up of sewage produces a disgusting stench in the cells. All the cells are encumbered with clothes drying on improvised clothes’ lines made from cut-up sheets. 3.2/ The open detention centre section comprises five ‘units’. Each unit consists of rooms measuring 8m², each occupied by two people, with no more separation than thin walls 2.5m high topped with, for a ceiling, a grating placed beneath the roof of the building. To protect themselves from the rats that roam around above, the prisoners have suspended sheets beneath the grating. In each room, a toilet occupies a corner separated on just one of the open sides by a small ‘wall’ 90 cm high. Prisoners are free to walk around in the unit. In the absence of any door, they place soiled linen at the entrance to the rooms. Electrical circuits are in large part damaged: absence of lamps, broken switches, exposed wires. Several of the drainage pipes for dirty water from the washing area - three showers without shower-heads and three toilets - were blocked. In front of each unit there is a 120m² (12m by 10m) garden enclosed by wire netting which prisoners can use for a few hours each day. The rest of the time, prisoners amble around inside the unit, with no other distraction available than watching the sole television screen provided. These buildings have no video surveillance system. At the time of the visit, some 113 individuals were accommodated in this section, designed for fifty-seven people. 3.3/ The long-term closed detention centre section houses people serving long sentences - including life - and comprises two units with two-person cells of between 8 and 10m² and one unit with communal sections comprising three contiguous cells, which means that seven or eight people are housed in a space of some 24m². Almost all cells have several clothes’ lines strung across them. The striking lack of storage furniture means that the prisoners pile their personal belongings where they can, mainly under the beds. Storage space is built using whatever is found to be suitable: the protective wire casings of electric fans are used as suspended baskets to hold food out of the reach of rats, and planks of wood have been attached to the window bars to 114