Charles Pasqua, former Interior Minister, proposed reinstating forced labor, outlawed in France since 1960, to combat radical Islam. Called on to react to Manuel Valls’s proposal to popularize the practice of isolating radical prisoners, Charles Pasqua took the opportunity to deliver a unique proposal.
“What have I learned? I read the newspaper like everyone else. I’ve learned that we are going to gather all radical prisoners in the same place. Bravo. And where is this place? It’s on French soil? That can’t be serious,” said Pasqua.
“Put them on an island, which means putting them far away, of course, I don’t see why we don’t reinstate forced labor.” The 1791 penal code, which legalized forced labor, was abolished June 4, 1960 and replaced by life imprisonment. Those sentenced to forced labor were transferred to prisons in Cayenne and French Guinea.
