French prison overcrowding reaches new record high

France's prison population reached 89,668 inmates on Aug. 1 against a capacity of about 63,300, pushing the national occupancy rate to a record 141.6%, up from 136.9% in February. Nearly 8,000 detainees were forced to sleep on floor mattresses, a 43.5% increase from the previous year, with pretrial detention centers reaching 175% occupancy.

The Council of Europe named France and Turkey the continent's most overcrowded prison systems in May, and U.N. torture-prevention experts that same month warned conditions could amount to inhumane treatment. Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin pledged in January to add 3,000 modular prison places, half operational by 2027.

A separate 2018 plan to build 15,000 prison places has delivered fewer than a third of that total, leaving the gap between promised capacity and actual overcrowding to keep widening.

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