Sarkozy refuses pardon for inmates

FRENCH president, Nicolas Sarkozy, disappointed thousands of prisoners yesterday by refusing to sanction a traditional Bastille Day pardon.

Mr Sarkozy’s two predecessors, Jacques Chirac and Francois Mitterrand, regularly ordered the mass release of prisoners to co-incide with the July 14 national holiday, using the pardon as a way of relieving heavy overcrowding in France’s jails.

Last July alone Mr Chirac freed a total of 3,500 inmates, and legal groups were hoping the newly installed Mr Sarkozy would follow suit this month to take some of the pressure off the prison network.

But the president, who won the election in May and has a reputation as a law and order hardliner, announced yesterday he would end the practice.

“There will be no mass pardon,” said Mr Sarkozy. “The proposal put to me was for the release of 3,000 prisoners. Since when has the right to a pardon been used as a way of managing prisons?”

France’s 188 jails house about 61,000 prisoners but were built to take a mere 50,000 inmates, official data shows.

The opposition Socialist Party supported Mr Sar-kozy’s decision but said the government needed to act urgently to improve prison conditions and find alternatives to custodial sentences.

Prison officers said they feared there could be a backlash from inmates who had come to expect thepardon.