French prisons held 89,446 inmates as of July 1st, an increase of 4,495 in one year. This 5,3% rise contrasts sharply with the increase in the number of operational prison places, limited to 63,289 and up by only 1,2%. The national prison occupancy rate has now reached 141,3%.
The situation is even more critical in remand prisons, where the occupancy rate has climbed to 174,5%. These facilities house those sentenced to short terms, but also defendants awaiting trial and therefore presumed innocent. Due to a lack of available beds, 7,890 people are sleeping on mattresses on the floor, an increase of 35,4% in one year.
Buildings already overwhelmed by the increase in the number of prisoners
The Ministry of Justice plans to create 3,000 places in modular facilities, 1,500 of which are scheduled to open by 2027. However, this response remains insufficient given the accumulated delays: less than a third of the 15,000 places announced in the plan launched in 2018 have been delivered. According to the Inspector General of Places of Deprivation of Liberty, a new prison would need to be opened every six weeks to keep up with the current pace.
The Council of Europe has already warned of the risk of French prisons becoming "human warehouses" due to overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, and violence. While alternatives to incarceration and sentence adjustments remain underutilized, the construction of new cells increasingly resembles a race impossible to win without a more profound reform of penal policy.
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