French prison population reaches record high as prisons overflow
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French prisons are overflowing with inmates as the prison population reaches all-time record of 120% capacity.
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Riot police officers detain a youth during a demonstration, April 6, 2023 in Paris, France (AP)
Official figures released on Friday show that France has a record number of prisoners serving time at the beginning of this month as the nation struggles with severe prison congestion.
France counted 73,080 inmates in prisons equipped to hold just 60,899 people on April 1, according to figures released by the justice ministry.
That indicated that the nation's prisons were 120% full.
Prune Missoffe, a rights observer for the French-based International Prison Observatory, claimed that the situation was "only getting worse, month by month."
The government should "take measures to decrease the pressure on prisons until more structural measures are found", she said.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled in early 2020 that authorities had not taken enough action to address prison overcrowding and ordered France to pay thousands of euros in damages to hundreds of prisoners.
By the end of President Emmanuel Macron's second term in office in 2027, France hopes to accommodate 15,000 additional prisoners.
In contrast, the court in charge of reviewing public finances discovered in a recent report that implementation was not proceeding as planned.
According to the report, the government had not even built enough new cells to meet the aim of 7,000 more jail beds by the end of last year.
The record-high imprisonment comes after it was revealed that more than 60% of the French believe that President Emmanuel Macron has become more authoritarian since taking office in 2017.
The poll, which was conducted by ViaVoice for the Liberation newspaper, also revealed that 72% of participants believe Macron has done less to bring people together than he did at the start of his first term, and over 60% have doubts about his capacity to address the nation's economic problems. According to 55% of respondents, Macron's overall professional performance declined.
Only 15% of French believe that Macron is relatable to regular people, a drop of 11 percentage points from September 2021. The survey was carried out between March 31 and April 4.
