French prisons have more than 90,000 inmates, a new record

A new record number. French prisons had 90,020 prisoners on September 1, an increase of 6.8% over one year (84,311 prisoners on September 1, 2025), according to official statistics from the Ministry of Justice published on Saturday.

The number of operational places has only increased by 1.2% in one year, and stood at 63,348 on September 1. That of mattresses placed on the ground, due to lack of beds, stood at 8,347, an increase of 51.8%.

Risk of an evolution towards a “human warehouse”

Prison density reached 176.1% on September 1 in remand centers, where people sentenced to short sentences or those awaiting trial and therefore presumed innocent are detained. The overall overoccupancy rate was 142.1%.

The Council of Europe denounced the state of French prisons at the beginning of the year, warning in a report of the risk of an evolution towards a “human warehouse”. Overpopulation, unsanitary conditions and violence are particularly singled out there.

The general controller of places of deprivation of liberty, Dominique Simonnot, deplored the absence of “national-scale measures” to curb prison overcrowding, in a notice published in the Official Journal at the beginning of July.

France is one of the worst performers in Europe

The Ministry of Justice intends to open 3,000 additional places in modular prisons, deemed cheaper and quicker to build, half of which from 2027, while less than a third of the 15,000 additional prison places planned in a national plan launched in 2018 have been delivered.

France is one of the worst performers in Europe in terms of prison density, tied with Turkey (131 people detained for 100 places), ahead of Croatia (123) and Italy (121) in particular, according to 2025 figures from the Council of Europe.