Overview
- The Contrôleure générale des lieux de privation de liberté published its final annual report on Thursday, May 28, 2026, and said conditions in prisons, psychiatric units, child‑protection facilities and immigration detention amount to a systemic catastrophe.
- Prisons are deeply overcrowded with 88,145 detainees for about 63,353 operational places as of April 1, 2026, very high occupancy rates and 7,540 people reported sleeping on floor mattresses.
- Inspectors found degraded living conditions including rats and bedbugs, frequent lack of privacy and under‑3 square‑metre living spaces, and recorded about 250 deaths a year in custody with nearly half by suicide and a rise in inmate homicides.
- Psychiatric services face severe staff shortages that push patients into crisis admissions and widespread use of isolation and physical restraint often inconsistent with legal limits, including cases involving minors.
- The CGLPL says its recommendations to ministers remain non‑binding and poorly followed, leaving fixes to require cross‑government funding and political decisions that will directly affect detainees’ health, safety and chances for rehabilitation.