Overview

• French prisons held 84,951 inmates on July 1 in facilities designed for 62,509 places, marking a 135.9% overall occupancy rate.
• Remand centers for those awaiting trial operated at 167% capacity, with 22,822 pretrial detainees housed in severely overcrowded conditions.
• Claire Hédon, Defender of Rights, warned that such extreme overcrowding infringes on detainee dignity and overwhelms health services.
• A Council of Europe study published in July ranks France third in Europe for prison overcrowding, trailing only Slovenia and Cyprus.
• Chronic understaffing, aging facilities and recent heatwaves have worsened conditions even as promised additions of 15,000 new places since 2017 have largely failed to materialize.