The CGLPL denounces the undignified reception of psychiatric patients in Paris emergency rooms

The General Controller of Places of Deprivation of Liberty (CGLPL) released, on September 10, 2026, urgent recommendations dated July 24, 2026, regarding the reception, waiting, and orientation of patients presenting with psychiatric issues in the emergency reception departments (SAU) of hospitals in Paris and the inner suburbs. The text, signed on July 24, 2026, under NOR CPLX2623427X, appeared in JORF No. 0211 of September 10, 2026. It was addressed to the ministers of health, the interior, and justice, with a four-week deadline to provide their observations.

A first thematic visit of twelve hospitals

Based on Article 9 of the law of October 30, 2007, these recommendations follow the first thematic visit of the SAUs conducted from July 6 to 10, 2026, by a team of six controllers. The hospitals inspected were Cochin, Robert-Debré, Necker-Enfants malades, Pitié-Salpêtrière, européen-Georges-Pompidou, Saint-Antoine, and Armand-Trousseau in Paris, as well as Antoine-Béclère in Clamart, Delafontaine in Saint-Denis, Henri-Mondor and the intercommunal hospital of Créteil, Bicêtre in Kremlin-Bicêtre, and the psychiatric orientation and reception center (CPOA) of the GHU Paris psychiatrie & neurosciences (PPN).

Four other teams concurrently visited the psychiatric infirmary of the Paris Police Prefecture and the SAUs of the Tenon, Lariboisière, and Bichat-Claude-Bernard hospitals between March and July 2026.

Prolonged waiting times in undignified conditions

The CGLPL notes that access to full-time inpatient psychiatric care via emergency departments is “failing.” Figures from the regional support unit of the ARS Île-de-France confirm a worsening situation between 2025 and 2026:

• +31.8% of patients affected by prolonged waiting between the first halves of 2025 and 2026, increasing from 3,002 to 3,957 patients;
• +34% in average waiting time, which rose from 29.45 hours to 39.45 hours between the 1st quarter of 2025 and the 2nd quarter of 2026;
• at the CPOA, 60% of patients wait more than 13 hours, 42% more than 24 hours, and 20% more than 48 hours in the 1st half of 2026;
• up to 27 patients waiting simultaneously, and one reported case of waiting for nine days.

Patients are seated on uncomfortable chairs or lying on stretchers lined up in corridors, sometimes without separation curtains, with limited access to hygiene. The CGLPL recalls that 10,383 full-time psychiatric hospitalization beds were closed from 2008 to 2022, according to the report of the National Assembly’s Social Affairs Committee from December 2024.

Arbitrary detentions and coercive measures without a legal framework

The controller denounces situations of arbitrary detention: some patients are deprived of their liberty in the Emergency Care Units (SAU) without a decision for admission to non-consensual care, with durations that can reach seven to eight days. The teams then perform an illegal certification to maintain the measure, without informing patients of their means of appeal.

Isolation and restraint measures are imposed on free patients, without a legal framework or judicial oversight. One team reported having used its fifteen restraint kits simultaneously, with systematically associated sedation, sometimes via forced injection.

Minors aged 16 to 18 deprived of child psychiatry care

Minors aged 16 to 18 are mostly directed toward adult psychiatry units, without the systematic collection of their consent or evaluation by a child psychiatrist, contrary to legal provisions which only authorize this possibility on an exceptional basis. The CGLPL calls for a legal status for minors hospitalized in psychiatry, a national rehabilitation plan for child psychiatry, and the express prohibition of isolation and restraint for minors.

A formal notice to the authorities

These emergency recommendations constitute a formal notice: the ministers have four weeks to respond, and the CGLPL may make their responses public if it deems it necessary. For readers, this text confirms that the crisis in psychiatric emergencies in the Île-de-France region is now documented by an independent authority, which demands organizational, structural, capacity, and human resource solutions “very quickly” to guarantee dignified and rapid access to care.

Official Reference: Emergency recommendations of July 24, 2026, NOR CPLX2623427X, published in the JORF n°0211 of September 10, 2026.