A look inside France’s ‘most notorious’ prison

The only prison in Paris, the notorious and historic La Santé was open this weekend for guided tours as it sits empty ahead of massive renovations. Here’s a look inside at a place that’s both fascinating and terrifying.

Published: 22 September 2014 17:25 CEST

A look inside France's 'most notorious' prison

La Santé was open this weekend for guided tours. Photo: Joshua Melvin/The Local

La Santé (which translates incredibly as Good Health Prison) is famous for being the only prison in the heart of Paris, but also for the unending string of famous captives who’ve passed through its doors.

First opened in 1867, it has held everyone from Carlos the Jackal to French bank robber and killer Jacques Mesrine who never met a prison he couldn’t break out of, including La Santé.

It’s also known for inhumanely harsh conditions which pushed a prison doctor to write a whistle-blowing exposé that detailed filthy inmates, uncontrolled vermin and mentally ill patients left to harm themselves. It's considered by some the most notorious prison in France.

But now the prison, except for a small day-release programme, is empty ahead of a major renovation project.

It was open this weekend to the public for tours guided by the guards who once kept the place running and who have a remarkable nostalgia for what must have been a trying workplace.

Some people waited all day for a chance to get inside a place that many inmates spent their time trying to get out of.

GALLERY: Welcome to La Santé prison

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The French Jewish community, the third largest in the world, has for months been on edge in the face of a growing number of attacks and desecrations of memorials.

“National police in Rouen neutralised early this morning an armed individual who clearly wanted to set fire to the city’s synagogue,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Police responded at 6.45 am to reports of “fire near the synagogue”, a police source said.

A source close to the case told AFP the man “was armed with a knife and an iron bar, he approached police, who fired. The individual died”.

“It is not only the Jewish community that is affected. It is the entire city of Rouen that is bruised and in shock,” Rouen Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol wrote on X.

He made clear there were no other victims other than the attacker.

Two separate investigations have been opened, one into the fire at the synagogue and another into the circumstances of the death of the individual killed by the police, Rouen prosecutors said.

Such an investigation by France’s police inspectorate general is automatic whenever an individual is killed by the police.

The man threatened a police officer with a knife and the latter used his service weapon, said the Rouen prosecutor.

The dead man was not immediately identified, a police source said.

Asked by AFP, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said that it is currently assessing whether it will take up the case.

France has the largest Jewish community of any country after Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s largest Muslim community.

There have been tensions in France in the wake of the October 7th attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, followed by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Red hand graffiti was painted onto France’s Holocaust Memorial earlier this week, prompted anger including from President Emmanuel Macron who condemned “odious anti-Semitism”.

“Attempting to burn a synagogue is an attempt to intimidate all Jews. Once again, there is an attempt to impose a climate of terror on the Jews of our country. Combating anti-Semitism means defending the Republic,” Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF). wrote on X.

France was hit from 2015 by a spate of Islamist attacks that also hit Jewish targets. There have been isolated attacks in recent months and France’s security alert remains at its highest level.