World Prisons
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France

Camp du Ban-Saint-Jean

Low
Verified 22 May 2026
Fresh · 7d ago

Data is aggregated from public sources and may be incomplete or out of date. Always verify with primary sources before acting on any figure. See data sources.

For families

How to send mail, money, and visit Camp du Ban-Saint-Jean

Step-by-step guidance using the France system — addresses, money services, visit booking, what to bring on your first visit.

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Background

Camp du Ban-Saint-Jean is a former military camp near Boulay-Moselle in France. Totally abandoned today, it was used during World War II as a stalag (German POW camp). During the Cold War, Boulay and Ban-Saint-Jean were the site of one of two NATO secret bases named "Big Ears", dedicated to listening to radio communications from the East. Giant sophisticated antennas and the most modern radio communications systems were operated under the protection of the French Army's 718th company of transmissions. Hundreds of trained specialists scrutinised the radio signals to detect military manoeuvres from the East, triggering alerts as soon as any alarming message was detected and deciphered.

Source: Wikipedia article lead, CC-BY-SA.

Capacity

Current population

Occupancy

Year opened

Operational

Facility profile

Operator

Population held

Mixed/unknown

Opened

Region

Security level

Death-row facility

No

Conditions

No conditions summary available yet.

Visiting

No visiting information available.

Mailing

No mailing information available.

Practical info

Contact the operator's website for inmate-specific procedures.

Known issues

No major issues documented in our database.

Contact & address

No public contact details available.

Conditions Risk Score

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Insufficient data
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Data completeness

16%

How many of our profile fields are populated. We surface this so families and researchers know the limits.

Sources