The French justice minister Rachida Dati is to visit the Netherlands on Friday to look at the Dutch system of the compulsory detention of convicted criminals in psychiatric hospitals (tbs).
Dati will visit a tbs clinic near Rotterdam with junior justice minister Nebahat Albayrak.
The trip follows a recent call by French president Nicolas Sarkozy for a similar system to be introduced in his country for paedophiles.
Dati will also meet justice minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin to discuss the French presidency of the European Union in the second half of next year.