Indeed, the other selected criterion of “comfort” is that of the presence of intercom devices in the cells. The reluctance of staff to willingly accept such facilities has already been emphasised in the Report of the Contrôle Général for 201231. It therefore unsurprising that none of the police stations inspected possessed any cells equipped with intercom devices. In five police stations out of fifteen (often the most recent), the existence of call buttons in the cells was noted, use of which results in the switching on of a signal light on an indicator board in the guard room. c/ The third criterion taken into account is that of hygiene, which, it certainly has to be said, is rarely a source of great satisfaction in police custody facilities. To this end, cell hygiene and personal hygiene are considered separately. As far as the premises broadly speaking are concerned, two factors are considered. The first of these concerns the cleanliness of cells. Since assessments in this regard may be marked by subjectivity (according to the inspectors), the inspections of police stations aimed to determine whether the most frequently occupied cells were least often cleaned, due to the man or woman entrusted with cleaning being unable to enter them. In other words, does the organisation of police custody premises provide for moving persons in police custody in order to enable cleaning of the cell? Or again, is the cleaning of cells all the rarer insofar as they are more frequently occupied? The affirmative answers in the table above thus indicate that occupants are not vacated from cells and that the latter are therefore rarely cleaned and are accordingly dirty or even repulsive. Out of the fifteen police stations in the sample, twelve present a situation of this kind. Because they are occupied, the cells are not cleaned. Depending on the establishment, they may therefore be rarely or never cleaned, while of course nobody thinks about setting up a cleaning schedule. Moreover, taking into account the additional constraints imposed in police custody (possible absence of toilets, lack of availability of officers) and the provocations in which certain malcontents may engage, it is easy to foresee (and smell) the state of certain premises. This state of affairs is principally attributable to a given mode of organisation of the service, rather than being a “state of nature” of offenders… The second item concerns clean blankets. A great many police custody facilities are cold at night and, in order to have any hope of resting (rest is, need it be recalled, provided for under the Code of Criminal Procedure, article 64, paragraph 2), protection against the temperature is needed. This is the reason for blankets. Indeed, this area provides a clear demonstration of the issue of margins of truth described in the first section. A practical fact as simple as determining whether blankets are placed at the disposal of persons in police custody and whether they are clean when granted is, in the reality of inspections, very difficult to establish. Most police stations possess blankets. Absence thereof only occurs in exceptional circumstances: due to the local climate (Pointe-à-Pitre) or to an interruption of supply which has not been resolved (Metz). However, this does not for all that mean that covers are given. In accordance with one of the constituent unspoken laws of the French administration, which is very deeply entrenched in practice, a great many officials consider that in the absence of request on the part of the persons concerned (in this case persons in police custody), there is no reason for them to spontaneously offer anything whatsoever. This attitude, which is moreover well adapted to the very real burden of the tasks to be performed, assumes two elements which are far from being certain: on the one hand, that persons in police custody know that they can ask for 31 Published by Dalloz, pp. 43-44. 38