Five months ago, the only thing that Nicolas, Rachid and Yassim had in common with the greats of professional cycling was their high-carbohydrate dinner: pasta, served to them with unfailing regularity at the Seysses prison in Toulouse.
The rest of their lives were spent inside the four walls of the jail watching TV, doing chores or lying in their cells. Exercise, when it came, was mostly minimal and indoors. So when they were first asked if they wanted to take part in a 3,500km bike ride around the countryside of France, they had only one reaction.
“We thought they were kidding,” said Nicolas, 22, whose fresh face makes him look more like a boy-band member than a hardened criminal. “We couldn’t believe it could be true.”
But the offer was real. And on Friday the three young men set off on their 176km stretch of arguably the most unlikely sporting event in their country’s history: the penal Tour de France.
In an event organizers hope will help boost rehabilitation projects in France’s struggling jails, around 200 convicted criminals — some serving time for murder and rape — are taking part in a nationwide ride through the hills, plains and vineyards of their bike-mad country.
Selected by prison staff — who took into account good behavior as well as sporting prowess when choosing from a deluge of volunteers — the majority of detainees are riding one stage before passing the baton to a team from another prison. The ride started in Lille last week and will finish in Paris. However, instead of the grandeur of the Champs Elysees, the venue will be a rather less glamorous sports stadium on the city’s southern outskirts.
For Nicolas, the experience has been life-transforming.
“It has really changed things for us,” he said. “It’s a chance to get out of our four walls. When you can get out even for a minute it does you good.”
Philippe, a detainee from the Tarascon prison in Provence, who completed the 200km stage from Le Pontet to Beziers on Thursday, said the training had been invaluable.
“The physical effects are obvious on us all — we’ve all lost 10 kilos,” he said. “But I think it’s also strengthened the bond between us. We’ve supported each other emotionally and physically.”
Such reactions come as no surprise to Francois Grosvalet, who organized the tour in his capacity as sport development adviser to the French prison system.
“The role of physical activity in the rehabilitation process has not been fully exploited,” he said. “Sport can have a calming and balancing effect on prisoners ... It can enable them to cope better with their incarceration.”
He said it was not just the prisoners but society as a whole that stood to benefit from a more effective rehabilitation of criminals.
“We have to be pragmatic about this — to know that one day these people will get out of prison and back into society and that therefore we have to think about the future,” he said.
Despite initial concerns over security, organizers say they have had no problems with logistics. Inmates have been escorted throughout by prison officers, but have not had to wear security bracelets or sleep in rooms with surveillance.
Breakaway sprints of the kind seen in the real Tour de France have, however, been forbidden — though organizers say that is less out of fear that prisoners will take the command literally and more out of concern for team mentality. There are no stage winners, either.
Gregory Braud, 22, a prison officer who yesterday cycled from Beziers with Nicolas, Rachid and Yassim, said the security arrangements had been based on mutual trust and had helped to ease tensions between guards and inmates.
Last month thousands of prison staff went on strike to protest against their “catastrophic” working conditions, with gripes including a lack of resources to deal with violent or uncooperative detainees.
“We’ve proved we’re human and they’ve proved they’re worthy of our trust,” Braud said.
His team included Rachid, 30, who admitted that after five months of training sessions they had more respect for their guard.
“He’s almost become a friend. Almost,” Rachid said.
But for Rachid, who has one month left to serve, the tour is not enough to make up for the deficiencies of the penal system. French prisons have one of the highest suicide rates in Europe and currently have about 11,000 more inmates than they are designed for. Overcrowding has become more of a problem since Nicolas Sarkozy, a former interior minister with a tough stance on law and order, was elected president.
“In a developed country it is unacceptable that we should be treated in such a way,” Rachid said. “It’s good to be able to get out on a bike, but there are more basic things to be dealt with too.”
Taiwan’s victory in the World Baseball Softball Confederation Premier12 championship is an historic achievement. Yet once again this achievement is marred by the indignity of the imposed moniker “Chinese Taipei.” The absurdity is compounded by the fact that none of the players are even from Taipei, and some, such as Paiwan catcher Giljegiljaw Kungkuan, are not even ethnically Chinese. The issue garnered attention around the Paris Olympics, yet fell off the agenda as Olympic memories retreated. “Chinese Taipei” persists, and the baseball championship serves as a reminder that fighting “Chinese Taipei” must be a continuous campaign, not merely resurfacing around international
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hypersonic missile carried a simple message to the West over Ukraine: Back off, and if you do not, Russia reserves the right to hit US and British military facilities. Russia fired a new intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile known as “Oreshnik,” or Hazel Tree, at Ukraine on Thursday in what Putin said was a direct response to strikes on Russia by Ukrainian forces with US and British missiles. In a special statement from the Kremlin just after 8pm in Moscow that day, the Russian president said the war was escalating toward a global conflict, although he avoided any nuclear
Would China attack Taiwan during the American lame duck period? For months, there have been worries that Beijing would seek to take advantage of an American president slowed by age and a potentially chaotic transition to make a move on Taiwan. In the wake of an American election that ended without drama, that far-fetched scenario will likely prove purely hypothetical. But there is a crisis brewing elsewhere in Asia — one with which US president-elect Donald Trump may have to deal during his first days in office. Tensions between the Philippines and China in the South China Sea have been at
US President-elect Donald Trump has been declaring his personnel picks for his incoming Cabinet. Many are staunchly opposed to China. South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, Trump’s nomination to be his next secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security, said that since 2000, China has had a long-term plan to destroy the US. US Representative Mike Waltz, nominated by Trump to be national security adviser, has stated that the US is engaged in a cold war with China, and has criticized Canada as being weak on Beijing. Even more vocal and unequivocal than these two Cabinet picks is Trump’s nomination for
RSS