4.1 Renewal of Prisoners’ Residence Permits The Annual Report for 2012 mentioned the referral to the Interior minister of the issue of major difficulties encountered by prisoners in obtaining the renewal of their residence permits. After the referral of this case, a joint circular from the Interior minister and the minister of Justice appeared on 25th March 2013 in the Journal Officiel. It is aimed, as the Contrôleur Général had requested, at fixing a standard procedure for processing applications for the issuance of initial residence permits or for the renewal thereof made by persons of foreign nationality placed in custody. In order to make the procedures easier for the obtainment or renewal of residence permits by prisoners, it will be possible for special correspondents to be appointed within the prefecture of each department in which a prison is located. Agreements may be entered into at the departmental level between prefects, prison services for rehabilitation and probation, penal institutions and legal information and advice access points, in order to coordinate their actions. As stated above the appointment of such persons specifically in charge of dealing with residence permit applications and the signature of agreements is simply a possibility and not an obligation incumbent upon prefectures. The inspectors continue to encounter prisoners of foreign nationality who experience the greatest difficulty, on the one hand, in finding assistance in carrying out the necessary formalities for the renewal of their residence permits and, on the other hand, once these formalities have been completed, in obtaining a response within a deadline compatible with their plans for rehabilitation or applications for reduced sentencing measures. This circular therefore needs to take full account of the facts in order to change the current situation of prisoners of foreign nationality. 4.2 Absence of Compliance with Regulations concerning Minimum Wages within Prisons In his Annual Report for 201175, le Contrôleur Général stressed the failure of companies employing prisoners to comply with the decree (décret) of 23rd December 2010 fixing a minimal legal level for the payment of work carried out within prisons in reference to the guaranteed minimum hourly wage in France (decree issued in application of the Prisons Act of 2009). At the time of their visits the inspectors had ascertained that the remuneration was in reality lower than the levels fixed by two memoranda of 2010 issued by the prisons administration department setting levels that were themselves lower than that fixed by the decree. This results in very low levels of pay as well as considerable differences between institutions and between contract-holding companies. In September 2012, the Contrôleur Général referred a case to the director of the prisons administration department, drawing attention to the low level of pay within the production workshops of a prison in the West of France. In response to the referral of this case, the director stated (letter of 6th March 2013) that the “prisons administration is concerned to ensure that current regulations are applied” but that it was equally concerned to maintain employment within prisons. From discussions conducted “with the various different parties”, it apparently emerged that these two objectives proved to be difficult to reconcile. In conclusion, the director of the prisons administration department stated that the prisons administration hoped to “progressively implement the new provisions provided for under the prisons act and its implementing decree in the course of the year 2013”. 75 P. 184 et seq. 71