Populist Front National leader Marine Le Pen visited several prisons where staff have been subjected to violence from inmates, including one in which a radical Islamic extremist attempted to murder three guards.
The former French presidential candidate travelled to the Vincennes Administrative Detention Centre which houses failed asylum seekers and expressed her solidarity with guards who have been the subject of attacks in recent months, L’Express reports.
The detention centre has seen severe riots in the past, with the most recent incident occurring last month when four individuals were injured after migrants attempted to escape by setting small fires throughout the building.
In October, 50 out of 80 police working at the facility took sick leave together in order to protest their work conditions, the influx of new migrants into the centre, and the lack of new staff which made it increasingly difficult to keep the migrants under control.
Only days before the visit to the detention centre, Ms. Le Pen travelled to the prison of Vendin-Le-Vieil in her home region of Pas-de-Calais, which she represents as an MP in the French parliament.
Earlier this month, three prison guards were attacked by a radical Islamic extremist named Christian Ganczarski, who has since been indicted on attempted murder charges.
Ganczarski, a German national with Polish roots and a convert to Islam, has been in French custody since 2003. He was given 18 years in prison in 2009 for his role in al-Qaeda terror attacks in Tunisia in 2002.
The Islamic extremist was said to have not only been a member of al-Qaeda but also in direct contact with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Osama Bin Laden himself.
The trips mark a fresh start for Ms Le Pen, who came second to globalist poster boy Emmanuel Macron in the presidential race last year, but was subsequently elected to the French parliament in June. During the trip, she commented on the newly proposed immigration bill championed by President Macron, calling it “cosmetic”.
Macron, who is set to meet British Prime Minister Theresa May on Thursday to discuss migrant issues, has promised to crack down on illegal migration after the French Interior Ministry admitted that the country had received a record number of asylum applications in 2017.